Aesthetic Education Infiltration or Superficial Sightseeing? The Predicament and Breakthrough of the World Music Course as a General Education Subject in Universities

Abstract

The world music course in university general education has long faced a structural predicament: under conditions of limited class hours and large class sizes, the course easily slides into the superficial “world music landscape exhibition” mode, in which aesthetic education goals are hollowed out by knowledge coverage. On the basis of diagnosing four deep-rooted problems—content “patchwork logic,” teaching “tour-guide model,” evaluation “knowledge trap,” and “expectation game” between students and teachers—this paper redefines the specific connotation of “aesthetic education infiltration” in the general education context. It argues that the core of this course is not knowledge coverage or skill acquisition, but cultural touching, embodied experience, perspective transformation, and life connection. Accordingly, this paper proposes a breakthrough path of “achieving depth through less and slow,” including restructuring the course from “traveling around the world” to “thick description of individual cases,” flipping the teaching method from “explanation first” to “experience first,” organizing content around “core questions” instead of “knowledge point listing,” and reforming the evaluation system from knowledge-based tests to reflective outputs. These measures aim to provide both a theoretical and practical framework for multicultural music teaching in the general education context.