The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze, based on data, how the music curriculum and related academic discourse have been formed and transformed around keywords and semantic structures over approximately 70 years, from the first music curr...
The purpose of this study is to empirically analyze, based on data, how the music curriculum and related academic discourse have been formed and transformed around keywords and semantic structures over approximately 70 years, from the first music curriculum to the 2022 revised music curriculum, through period by period analysis. To achieve this, the music curriculum and academic discourse were categorized by period. Text mining analysis methods—TF-IDF analysis, bi-gram analysis, and degree centrality analysis—were then applied. Each analysis result underwent minimum-maximum normalization, followed by integration into a composite indicators using a weighted sum method for comprehensive analysis.
The integrated analysis revealed that from the first to the fourth period, common keywords related to music's basic theory and activities, such as basic theory, basics, musical pieces, and song, predominantly appeared in the music curriculum and academic discourse. This suggests a content-centered semantic structure was formed, recognizing music as a subject of learning focused on understanding musical elements and acquiring practical skills. During the Fifth and Sixth periods, common keywords like musical pieces and tonality appeared, indicating that music activities focused on basic music theory and musical pieces were maintained. Furthermore, common keywords related to learners’ musical experiences, such as sensing, interest, tradition, and Korean folk songs, and keywords related to Korean traditional music education emerged. This reflects an expansion of the semantic structure beyond the content-centered framework to include learners’ experiences and responses, as well as socio-cultural perspectives.
In the 7th curriculum period and in the 2007 and 2009 revisions, perspectives emerged that encompassed music learning content and activities, such as musical pieces, interest, culture, society, life, application, assessment, and teaching, along with keywords related to learners' experiences and responses, the processes of instruction and assessment designed for them, and understanding and practicing music within its socio-cultural context. This confirmed that a semantic structure—including content-centered and learner-centered structures, as well as the socio-cultural perspective on music—had become stably established during this period.
In the 2015 and 2022 revisions, common keywords appeared in music curriculum and academic discourse, such as assessment, instruction, application, media, culture, life, society, achievement, competency, musical pieces, creation, and Korean traditional music. These encompassed the implementation of instruction and assessment, socio-cultural perspectives, student competencies and achievements, as well as musical pieces, creation, and Korean traditional music. This demonstrated that music education is expanding into a complex, multi-layered semantic structure. It encompasses not only the perspective of understanding and practicing music within the learner's life and socio-cultural context, but also the implementation of instruction and assessment that support the development of their competencies, the study of musical pieces, Korean traditional music, and creative activities. Through this, it was confirmed that music education in Korea has undergone a reorganization and expansion of its meaning structure, shifting from a content-centered structure focused on musical elements and pieces toward an approach focused on what learners can experience and perform through music.
Moreover the emergence, persistence, and disappearance of common keywords across the music curriculum and academic discourse revealed that these two discourses have influenced each other and adjusted their semantic structures in relation to time and context. For instance, the keyword musical piece appeared in the music curriculum, while discussions on interpretation, practice, and supplementation emerged in academic discourse. Common keywords such as assessment, culture, society, materials, and teaching showed a pattern where discussions accumulated first in academic discourse before being reflected in the music curriculum with later reflected. While teacher was consistently discussed in academic discourse, it appeared selectively in the music curriculum, exerting both direct and indirect influence in the process of curriculum implementation. Life, by contrast, was initially presented in the music curriculum and, following a process of reemergence, came to be discussed across both discourses, exhibiting a characteristic transformation and expansion in meaning. In addition, the keywords derived in this study were quantitatively confirmed to function not merely as a collection of frequently occurring words, but as meaningful clues that implicitly reveal the perspectives and values recognized as important and shared within the music education community. Accordingly, the changing patterns of these keywords served as significant indicators for understanding the the long-term process through which the music curriculum and academic discourse have mutually influenced each other, thereby shaping the semantic structure of music education.
The text mining-based integrated analysis method employed in this study applied an analytical approach that combines different analytical indicators into a composite method. This presents a methodological significance by offering a way to analyze the long-term changes in the music curriculum and academic discourse from a single standard.
Based on these findings, the study has the following educational implications. First, this study can provide data-based evidence for examining how music education has historically emphasized and adjusted particular values and perspectives throughout the revision process of the music curriculum. Second, for music teachers, this study can serve as a reference for understanding the historical trends of the music curriculum and academic discourse across different periods in a more structural and intuitive manner, thereby supporting the interpretation of the direction of the music curriculum and the restructuring of instruction and assessment. Third, the findings of this study can serve as foundational data for setting research topics and expanding theoretical discussions in academic research on the music curriculum.
In this regard, this study offers meaningful implications for the shift in research and policy discussions on the music curriculum toward data-based approaches, in light of the expanding trend of data-informed decision making in current policy and educational contexts.