Curriculum of music education for the basic educational stage in Jordan and Singapore: A comparative analytical study in light of the twenty-first century skills

Abstract

The study's objectives were to compare and contrast the levels of incorporating 21st -century skills into   the music curriculum for the basic educational stage in Jordan and Singapore.  The study employed the analytical descriptive approach and the comparison approach as a methodology and it used a content analysis that included 13 skills and 52 indicators for data collection, the general framework and general and specific outcomes of the music education curricula for the first six basic grades in Jordan and Singapore which made up the study sample. The results demonstrated that the general structure and learning objectives of Singapore's music education curriculum were highly inclusive of twenty-first century skills except for the skill of media literacy. Communication skills were given a high degree of inclusion in the Jordanian music education curriculum whereas four other skills had medium levels of inclusion and eight had low levels. Comparisons between the two curricula were made to properly understand the results that led to Singapore's music education curriculum being extremely inclusive of abilities essential to the twenty-first century. The study recommends increasing the inclusion of media literacy skills in the music education curriculum of both countries  and  increasing the inclusion of critical thinking and problem-solving, innovation, creativity, communication, collaboration, leadership and responsibility, flexibility and adaptability, productivity and accountability, information literacy, information communications and technology literacy, social and cross-cultural, and initiative and self-direction skills in the Jordanian curriculum.