Twelve world music songs, most with correlated movements, are presented here for use as in-service materials and in classrooms to promote understanding and respect among today's diverse students and their cultures. From Native North America, Asia, South Pacific Polynesia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, songs chosen are accessible to students according to musical difficulty and subject matter, which is descriptive of the culture from which it originated. Each one explores a facet that is familiar but disparate from students' own environs. Background information and lesson plans are suitable for elementary and middle school and primarily for teachers of arts and social studies.

The consensus of educators writing about world music is that participating in songs and movements taught within the human cultural context and learning about diverse ways of living and working enhances both the musical learning and the understanding of others and one's own place in the world.