Multiculturalism in the UK and China: A Comparative Investigation of Music Festivals and Education Programmes

This dissertation begins with an introduction to what multiculturalism means in China and the UK. It then analyses several multicultural music festivals, in order to understand their functions in a multicultural society, which are principally entertainment, economics, education and social cohesion. Education, as a separate topic, is investigated further in the next part. The whole education systems are outlined, with an emphasis on higher education, which, in certain institutions, adopts ethnomusicology (inherently multicultural) as a means of introducing different musical systems, with their cultures, peoples and languages, beyond the western music standard. These chapters are followed by a discussion further to address the research question: what multiculturalism means in the UK and China and the similarities and differences between them. Both nations share a majority and official belief in the benefits of multiculturalism, despite its controversial aspects and despite very different multicultural demographics, with Chinese multiculturalism coming from within and British multiculturalism, at least since the term has been widely applied, from without.