Approaching music from a sociological perspective, this book deals with the concept of ideology in relation to music. The focus of investigation is on the reflection of ideology and power relations in the music curriculum before and after Croatian independence. The goal of this work is to help our understanding of how and why certain musical values come to be accepted as common sense, how these values are reproduced through history and, moreover, how they perpetuate social relations. The educational system is viewed as a social mechanism that aids in this perpetuation and regulation. The objective is to prove that music curricula can have an important political role in defusing and eliminating ethnic conflicts or in helping promote national identity. Significant shifts and changes in the musical values and preferred musical styles in Croatia after the war in the 1990s show that political identity can be superimposed over cultural specifics. The actions of pressure groups in exerting influence over the curricula and music promoted by the media in the period prior to and after Croatian independence reveal that music is an ideological construct. The ideological shift in the music curriculum and the change in the concept of music identity in Croatia during the 1990s adequately document a close relationship between politics and music. In the late 1980s and early 1990s Croatia was experiencing a period of transition from being a former Yugoslav republic to becoming an independent democratic country with ambitions to be accepted by the European Union. This particular political position resulted in the strong need for national rhetoric and the enforcement of national music production. In order to find out how and why this shift in the ideological orientation of the country affected the educational concepts and the content of the music curriculum, as well as the types of music promoted and broadcast by media, this research is based on a historical perspective. A discography is included. (Contains 23 figures and 164 footnotes.