Abstract
M.Ed. (Education)
During the last two decades there has been a definite lowering of
moral standards among the children of the West. This also pertains to
the youth in South Africa. Among the many influences the child
experiences in society, rock music, with its themes of sex, drugs,
satanism, rebellion, materialism, secular humanism, suicide, nihilism,
hedonism, blasphemy and profanity is possibly the most negative. Add
to the above-mentioned, subliminal mind control and backward masking
and it becomes clear why the Christian educator and the Christian
parent must address the problem of rock and roll. Furthermore, rock
music has directly or indirectly been responsible for much of the
anti-social behaviour of present day youth. Tragically, modern day
society is responsible for promoting the rock culture (with the help
of modern technology), by making available to the youth of today
records, videos and magazines, without realising the spiritual and
moral damage they are causing. The modern day music entrepreneur has
motives that are not honourable and not Christian as it is m?ney that
makes the music go around.
A very extensive literature study confirmed the above. As norms and
values differ from culture to culture, the Christian norm was chosen
as the irrevocable absolute norm rooted in the Word of God, to judge
the morals upheld by the propagators of rock and roll. On the basis
of the literature study done, an empirical investigation, formulating
items obtained from the study for inclusion in the questionnaire, was
conducted. The sample consisted of English speaking boys and girls in
standard 7 and standard 9 from four high schools on the near East
Rand. Cluster sampling was done by randomly selecting a class group
from each of the standard 7 and standard 9 class groups of the four
high schools concerned...