School Curriculum as a Means of Shaping National Identity: Music Education in the Slovak Region of Czechoslovakia in the Interwar Period (1918-1939)

This study deals with the Slovak music education curriculum of the ideologically and politically vibrant interwar period of the first Czechoslovak republic (1918-1939). It presents the outcomes of an analysis of primary sources made using grounded theory techniques. The analysis has lead to a conceptualisation of the idea of the nation as it was introduced to Slovaks after the rise of the first Czechoslovak republic. The subsequent qualitative survey shows the percentage of the concepts in music education songbooks and textbooks used in Slovakia in the period 1918-1939. The study examines the possibilities of introducing and applying ideological contents into the process of education through school curricula which are not only a source of implicit social ideas, but may also become a platform for the actions of ideology, a means of embedding an ideological doctrine in the opinions and values of the actors in the educational process.