The Message in the Music: Popular Culture and Teaching in Social Studies
usic is the universal language, or so the saying goes. Most people love music and may even find solace as they listen to their preferred musical genres. How often do songs “take us back” to a memory long since past? Because music can evoke deep personal meanings, social studies educators often use songs to emphasize larger historical moments. This personalization phenomenon continues as today’s youths explore their own musical genres and store today’s memories. Because music is a vital component of youth popular culture, preferred over even movies and television (Rideout, Roberts, and Foehr 2005), a teacher’s understanding and application of popular music can be a powerful tool for instruction and learning in social studies education. Popular music is most often used to enhance history education through an investigation of the music of a period, a practice suggested by Harris (2004), Bafumo (2004), and Palmer (1998). Music’s full potential, however, is often underused, especially that of contemporary popular music. As social studies educators, our ongoing challenges are to provide students with effective tools to examine relevant societal issues critically and to make connections to the world of students; current popular music is a way to do that. Although traditional social studies education often focuses on covering essential knowledge to ensure high test scores and teachers often do not have enough time to include music, which some consider inappropriate for the classroom, teachers interested in a relevant social studies curriculum that facilitates active participation and problem solving may apply contemporary popular music in a variety of significant ways. With myriad present social problems, meaningful integration of current issues is vital in social studies education. Music is a powerful tool that teachers can use for a serious examination of such social problems as poverty, racism, abuse, and addictions and such global issues as hunger, disease, and war. Following in the footsteps of former entertainers, today’s artists, like the Black Eyed Peas, Dixie Chicks, and Green Day, focus on social issues that should be considered in our classrooms. Through the students’ exploration of lyrics, music becomes a tool that offers social studies educators opportunities to engage in meaningful conversations about major social issues and to connect with students. Part of our responsibility as educators is to analyze the historical role that music has played in raising social consciousness, but more important, teachers need to use these examples to connect to the struggles that are being waged now.