Welcome to my website

Abstract

This study examines the particular interest in the diversity and otherness shown for several years now by the global cultural industries - with the multimedia industry being their spearhead. This interest can be better understood in the context of the globalized market of cultural goods. The article argues that although to the listener's ear or the viewer's eye reaches an unprecedented diversity of cultural and artistic products, it still stays out of the sight and systematically suppressed the fact that the terms and the conditions of this achievement keep functioning at the expense of the less developed societies and the less favored social strata (in the economic, social and cultural sense). At the same time, the illusion about art as a universal or global "language" that might resolve more easily the asymmetries and the social contradictions of our time is supported by artistic means too. Finally, the study argues that these developments might advance a policy to encourage the cultural development on a local level and contribute to the development of a critical artistic and aesthetic culture.

Last Updated: 07 November 2016

Abstract

The article analyses and discusses certain functions of commodity relations in musical life. Research on the implications and significance of these relations represent nowadays a serious challenge for the sociology of music that has provided in the past exemplary elaborations and critical approaches.

The analysis focuses on the fact that the modification of the commodity relations has a strong impact on every section of musical life and in several of its aspects. This impact seems to be reinforced in a multiplicative way in the context of a global economy, where time and space limitations - specific for the previous status quo - are removed. From this point of view, the form of globalization, that is dominant for the time being, takes on a special importance for musical life. It plays a part in the development of new patterns of musical culture in general.

In these unprecedented circumstances musical education acquires particular significance. It may function in a decisive way not only - and not mainly - as an autonomous form of education, but rather as an organic component embedded in a system of education that takes seriously into account aesthetics and art. This course involves a thoroughly elaborated reconsideration of musical education in its entirety. It also involves the kind of rearrangements that inescapably are tied up with political decisions.

Last Updated: 07 November 2016

Abstract

This paper - which presents only a part from a broader research - analyzes the dominant institutions of private music education in Greece from 1971 to 2000 (conservatories and private music schools). The analysis extends to the social groups involved in this particular institution of Greek musical life, with an emphasis on the educators. The second part presents the results of a sociological research carried out on 20 institutes of music education in 9 prefectures of Northern Greece. Two types of questionnaire were used along with the method of participant observation.

The structural changes of the social groups involved in this important institution (its history is longer than 130 years) have not been clarified so far. Moreover, most of the features of these social groups are still unknown. This shortcoming could hardly prevent mistakes in music education policy with unpredictable effects on the musical culture in Greece. Even though it is clearly stated that further analysis and research are necessary, the paper is original in terms of the data it provides for a discussion of the social reproduction and cultural socialization in Greece. Actually, this is the first research report of this kind published in the country.

Last Updated: 17 May 2023

Abstract

The article - based on the case of the music education - explores some of the effects of globalization on the institutions for the aesthetic, cultural and artistic reproduction and socialization. Several peculiar features of the institutes for music education in Greece were formed during the long period of its existence, that is in more than 130 years. These become more complicated in the new context created by changes in the broader fields of labor relations and the general education system - changes brought about by globalization. The changes introduced in the institution of general education restrict drastically or exclude almost entirely the advance of the aesthetic and artistic education, precisely during adolescence - a period important for the formation of aesthetic values and artistic culture. This is supported by the findings of an empirical sociological research. This study presents and interprets the data collected during this research with a self-completing questionnaire in conservatories of Northern Greece and with the method of participant observation.

The article argues that the developments discussed favor the education of the recipients of cultural goods as sentimental consumers rather than as critically thinking citizens. This tendency might - in the long run - have an impact on the value systems, the choices and preferences, and on collective attitudes towards the arts and the culture as well.

Last Updated: 07 November 2016