Strengthening and Preserving Practices of Philippine Folk Dances in Relation to Cultural Awareness of Secondary Students of Davao City

Porferia  S. Poralan,; Rene  M. Babiera,; Rebecca  P. Habla,

Strengthening and Preserving Practices of Philippine Folk Dances in Relation to Cultural Awareness of Secondary Students of Davao City

Porferia S. Poralan | Rene M. Babiera | Rebecca P. Habla

Discipline: Humanities

Abstract:

Cultural awareness is the foundation of literate national communication. It involves one’s ability to stand back from where he or she is to become more aware of cultural values, beliefs and perceptions. Strengthening and preserving these values, beliefs, and traditions can pose a great challenge especially today when culture has become vulnerable because of globalization. It is on this ground that this study was conducted to determine the levels of practices in strengthening and preserving Philippine folk dances and general knowledge of folkdances as a measure of cultural awareness of secondary students of Davao City. The respondents of the study were the 37 MAPEH teachers and 1,896 secondary school students of School Year 2011-12 teaching or enrolled, respectively, in public high schools in three congressional districts of Davao City. The mean was used to describe the levels of practices concerning the strengthening and preserving of Philippines folk dances and Pearson-r was employed to test the relationship between each of these variables and cultural awareness. A researcher-made survey questionnaire was constructed and tested for validity and reliability. A 20-item multiple choice test was also administered to the student respondents of the study. Findings revealed that there is a high level of strengthening and preserving practices for Philippine folk dances with an overall mean of 3.69 and 3.64, respectively, and level of cultural awareness of students is good as quantified by a mean score of 11.03. Further, strengthening practices, such as being careful but allowing students to explore Philippine folk dance, was encouraged while preserving practices, such as resisting any alteration of folk dances and reading literature before the dance, are also prevalent among MAPEH teachers. On the other hand, students are more knowledgeable of the dance literature than about folk dances. However, strengthening and preserving practices by the MAPEH teachers have no significant relationship with the general knowledge as a measure of cultural awareness of the student of Philippine folk dances.