The confluence of accelerated globalization and persistent cultural pluralism necessitates a recalibration of music education's role from aesthetic instruction to a vital bridge for intercultural empathy and cultural understanding. This pedagogical imperative is reinforced by China’s 2022 National Arts Curriculum Standards, which identifies cultural understanding as a core competency. Against this backdrop, and specifically within the unique, cross-cultural setting of Great Bay Area in China, this study investigates the underlying constructive mechanisms and developmental pathways through which World Music Pedagogy (WMP) facilitates students' re-positioning of national cultural identity and subsequent cultivation of intercultural empathy. The research utilizes Edwards' (1994) four-level framework and maps it against Campbell's (2005, 2016) WMP process, aiming to fill the critical research gap regarding the empirically supported process-outcome mapping mechanism within this specialized context.The research questions are: (1) How does the World music pedagogy (WMP) instructional process dynamically construct the developmental pathways through which sixth-grade students achieve cultural identity re-positioning and subsequent intercultural empathy? (2) What is the resulting theoretically grounded model that is generated from the WMP process-outcome analysis, and how is this model adapted to the Chinese curriculum context?Adopting a qualitative, multiple embedded case study design (Yin, 2018), this study implements a 12-week instructional intervention across two sixth-grade classes. To achieve qualitative rigor in understanding the process, a purposeful sub-sample of 15 students is selected based on principles of maximum variation and typicality to serve as the focal group for in-depth analysis. Data sources include classroom video recordings, teacher observation logs, and three-stage semi-structured interviews. Data analysis employs thematic analysis, combining deductive coding (based on the Edwards framework) with inductive coding to ensure the validation of theoretical mapping and the capture of subtle, emerging phenomena in practice.The preliminary findings of this ongoing study suggest that the phased WMP approach will reveal a clear developmental pathway. The sequenced intervention is expected to demonstrate that the listening and participation phases stimulate initial cultural knowledge, while the creation and integration phases drive identity anchoring and value internalization. The project is expected to generate a five-stage localized teaching model that empirically maps the WMP process to the Edwards' outcome hierarchy.The completion of this study will reveal the specific constructive mechanisms that drive WMP’s effectiveness. The resulting theoretically grounded model will provide a systemic path for cultivating students' cultural identity and empathy, offering an empirically supported, Chinese context-adapted theoretical framework for global music education research.Keywords: cultural identity, world music pedagogy, intercultural empathy