Wai-Chung received her PhD in music education from the UCL Institute of Education at the University of London, and is now a professor in the Department of Music at Hong Kong Baptist University. Her substantive research interests include the sociology of music, sociology of education, China’s music education, and the comparative study of East Asian music education. Her research has focused on interlinked areas of social and political development, education policy, and reform in school education, as well as on values in education across school curricula in Chinese contexts, including Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Wai-Chung is a frequent contributor to leading international research journals in the fields of education, music education, and cultural studies, and has been published in such top-ranked journals as Comparative Education, Popular Music & Society, Social History, British Journal of Music Education, International Journal of Music Education, and Music Education Research. Her book School Music Education and Social Change in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan (Brill, 2011) examined recent reforms and innovations in school music education within these changing Chinese societies, and compared, from a sociopolitical perspective, how music education in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Taipei has adjusted to the forces of globalisation, localisation, and Sinicisation, as well as the complex relationship between cultural diversity and political change in these three localities. Her second book, Education, Society, and Cultures (Nova, 2016), addressed the overriding issues concerning the consequences of links between higher education and social change. The main objective of this book was to present information and scholarly research on the development of and challenges to social change, cultures, and higher education in Hong Kong. Questions were raised in this book, such as the extent to which students can be guided in recognising the formation of diverse cultures as a social accomplishment in a globalised world, as well as the extent of how global citizenship education and other values education can be acknowledged in higher education in a changing world. Her new book, Popular Music, Cultural Politics and Music Education in China (Routledge, 2017), examined how social changes and cultural politics have affected the transmission of music in Beijing, Shanghai, and Changsha, which share a common historical culture but have more recently had diverse sociopolitical experiences. The empirical study presented in the book explored Chinese adolescents’ popular music preferences in their daily lives in these three cities, and to what extent and in what ways they preferred experiencing and learning about popular music, rather than more traditional music, in school curricula. It also addressed the power and potential use of popular music in school music education as a producer and reproducer of cultural politics in the music curriculum in Mainland China. Her present research project will explore the dynamics and complexity of the relationship between the state, nationalism, and globalisation in music teacher education in Hong Kong and Taipei. Hong Kong and Taiwan have long been crucibles of cross-cultural encounters between Chinese and Western cultures, with different political ecologies and different relationships with Mainland China. These two factors have affected the meaning of “home country”, and therefore the promotion of national identity and nationalism in education and music education in both Chinese societies. In this project, nationalism is an important social and political phenomenon that involves creating, for Hong Kong and Taiwan, a definable identity through participation in singing and listening to both national anthems, and by developing Chinese and/or Taiwanese traditional and folk music in school music education. The dynamic effects of globalisation on teacher education have been found in the integration of world music and popular music in both in-service and pre-service teacher education. To date, no studies examining the similarities and differences in music teacher education in Hong Kong and Taiwan have been found in relation to the double paradigm of nationalism and globalisation. In addition to her research and writing, Wai-Chung greatly enjoys her teaching responsibilities. She believes that teaching is more than the mere development of skills and communication of knowledge, and that a liberal arts education should nurture the qualities of mind that will help students build their self-esteem, develop their critical thinking skills, support their intellectual and professional development, and create positive learning environments that respect and promote intellectual diversity, within and beyond their university education. Wai-Chung follows the aspect of the research-led teaching and learning principle, which sets out to examine the reality of university rhetoric concerning the relationship between research and teaching. Her teaching philosophy is also influenced and guided by humanistic approaches to learning and by experiential and socio-constructivist learning theories in the social world. Research-informed teaching and teaching-informed research are key to helping her ensure that students are taught in an engaging and challenging manner, as shown in her recent book Education, Society and Cultures (2016), which addressed student learning and teaching practices in Hong Kong’s higher education. To create a warm and creative classroom environment, Wai-Chung always strives to provide students with challenging materials, patient guidance, and the encouragement needed to help them embrace values, grow, and learn. In doing so, she hopes to gain a deeper and clearer understanding of what the university means by research-led teaching and learning by making use of the teacher’s disciplinary research to benefit student learning and outcomes.

Music, songs, lyrics