The Inheritance of Chinese Folk Music Culture During the Compulsory Education Stage in Nanjing, China

School music education bears the mission of inheriting folk music culture. However, cultural diversity has become an irreversible trend, and the inheritance and development of Chinese folk music are facing challenges. This research aims to investigate the challenges and factors influencing the inheritance and development of Chinese folk music in school music education. Additionally, it seeks to determine whether there is a noticeable increase in participants' perceptions of Chinese folk music inheritance across six schools. The study adopted a quantitative method research design, a total of 99 different age participants from 6 different types of primary and secondary schools in the city of Nanjing, China were invited to do the questionnaire survey. The results indicate that there are relatively fewer weekly music class hours arranged in schools, especially in rural primary and secondary schools. The actual proportion of Chinese folk music in music classes is significantly reduced compared to the requirements of the national music curriculum standards. Although most participants recognize the importance of teaching Chinese folk music in schools, they believe that there is a lack of effective protection and publicity for this type of music, due to the weak folk music literacy of most teachers, as well as a lack of teaching methods with ethnic characteristics. In sum, in the context of current Chinese education policies Chinese folk music teaching in the Chinese compulsory education stage might need to be redirected to the directions of society-centered and student-centered to promote the inheritance of Chinese national music culture.