Abstracts and bios for SibA Research Days 15 March 2024
Keynote: Erkki Huovinen (Royal College of Music, Stockholm)
Creativity, Music, and Society
This keynote lecture concerns general ideas about human creativity and their relation to music. The first part addresses whether and how scholarly theories of creativity may or may not have relevance to the creative domain of music. In the second part, special concern is given to cultural beliefs and expectations regarding creativity in the Western world. It turns out that such expectations have shaped discourses around musical creativity in directions toward greater situatedness and societal relevance.
Erkki Huovinen is professor of music education at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. He received his doctorate in musicology at the University of Turku in 2002. Before moving to Stockholm in 2016, he worked as fixed-term professor of musicology at three universities in Finland. He also held a visiting professorship at the University of Minnesota School of Music in 2009–2013. Huovinen’s research has spanned the psychology of music, the philosophy of music, music education, and music theory. His current research topics include musical creativity, imagery, perception, and expertise, as well as the history and methodology of music research.
Maiju Loukola (KuvA Doctoral programme, Uniarts Helsinki), Aino Hirvola (Aalto University), Paul Tiensuu (University of Helsinki) & Henna-Riikka Halonen (Academy of Fine Arts, Uniarts Helsinki)
Lecture performance (ironic recital): “How is art useful? Let’s not invite dialogue.”
The lecture performance ”How is Art useful for the Society? Let’s not invite Dialogue” is a cacophony of monologues on “art’s usefulness to the society”. It is an ironic spoken concerto in 25-minutes, performed between four characters: “Art”, “Society”, “Research”, “Participation”, and a surprise character entering the final scene.
The four characters pretend to be in dialogue with each other, but in reality they keep talking their own views past each other, regardless of what the others say. “Art” claims to hold the truth and power to change the world. “Society” understands nothing and demands everything. “Research” patronizes “Art” and grovels before “Society”, hysterically generating Kärkihanke Ideas. “Participation” is a Facebook-Jonne who is thumbs up for everything and overly disproportional in political correctness. But who did they forget to invite to the dialogue? – let’s find out!
During the performance, visual input giving a horizon of its own on the subject discussed, is running on the screen.
The lecture performance is composed by four artist-researchers and researchers in the City as Space of Rules and Dreaming research project (Kone Foundation 2021–2024, with KuvA Doctoral Programme at the Uniarts, Faculty of Law + Faculty of Arts/Aesthetics at Helsinki University, Dept of Built Environment at Aalto University), deploying questions of emancipation and democratisation in urban space by cross-examination through art, artistic research, empirical urban research, and political and legal theory.
The necessity to safeguard art’s autonomy and the freedom of art and research, under the increase of attempts of political guidance top-down has been one of the inspirations for the manuscript of this performance.
Maiju Loukola (DA, University Lecturer at the Doctoral programme, KuvA, Uniarts) focuses in her artistic research (&) practice on site-related urban interventions, democratization of space, peripherality, and in-/exclusive practices.
Henna-Riikka Halonen (DA, Postdoctoral Researcher at KuvA, Uniarts) is a visual artist and a researcher who uses a wide range of artistic techniques and historical and cultural references. Her works often response to a specific context or a site highlighting our need to structure experiences as fiction to gain an understanding of them. Her work’s been shown widely in Finland and internationally.
Aino Hirvola (M.Sc. / arch., doctoral candidate in urban planning) examines professional lobbying in urban planning and politicization as a source of democratic legitimacy of planning. Her main research interest is planning theory, within which she studies politicization, populism, emancipation and transparency in planning.
Paul Tiensuu (MSSc, Doctoral candidate in Law, University of Helsinki) develops the theory of norms and their materialisation and effect in the urban space. Further, he studies how urban space affects the potential of collective political action. He specialises on 20th century French philosophy, particularly structural theory, and in this vein contributes to the general theoretic background of the project.
Harri Homi (MuTri, Cultural study of music, Sibelius Academy, Uniarts Helsinki)
Navigating Music streaming with Foucault’s Dispositive
This presentation explores the application of Michel Foucault’s concept of the dispositive to the cultural study of music. The dispositive, regarded as a methodological tool, facilitates the scrutiny of a given cultural practice as a structurally intricate amalgamation of heterogeneous historically evolving societal discourses, encompassing written, spoken, and visual modalities. Utility of dispositive lies in unraveling the intricate interrelations and dependencies embedded within these diverse discourses, thereby elucidating distinct epistemological conditions that the structure imposes upon culture. Within the domain of musicology, the adoption of the concept remains notably scarce. This presentation seeks to address this by showcasing how socio-cultural conditions materialize within music streaming. I will demonstrate a limited corpus of discourses centered around music streaming and algorithmic recommendations, elucidating how these can be systematically organized as a dispositive.
Harri Homi, PhD student, Sibelius Academy MuTri doctoral school. My research is deeply immersed in the intricate, non-sonic dimensions of music cultures. Since 2018, my investigations have explored the converging realms of live music, sustainability, and digitalization. At present, my doctoral project delves into the dynamic landscape shaped by streaming and algorithms, unraveling their far-reaching effects on listeners, music, and culture. Rooted in the philosophical insights of Michel Foucault, I adopt a cultural standpoint in approaching music, viewing it as a distinctive way of knowing.
Laura Valoma (Arts Management, Master’s Program, Sibelius Academy, Uniarts Helsinki)
In Search of Equity: Instruments of Equity within Finnish Cultural Policy and Funding
Finland is rapidly diversifying and the current discussions on racism, discrimination, equality, and inclusion call for more research on equity and equity measures within the cultural field. This research will formulate a picture of how equity is included in Finnish cultural policy, how it is implemented and what are the instruments of implementation and evaluation.
It is critical to identify the instruments or suggestions and evaluate the effects of these equity initiatives, meaning how efficient these measures within the cultural policy and funding truly are. This research strives to answer how these equity measures are described in Finnish cultural policy, how they are implemented through for instance funding and how the impact of these measures is evaluated or monitored through research.
This qualitative research is conducted through data collection and semi-structured interviews with The Ministry of Education and Culture, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, and Centre for Cultural Policy Research. Through these three central actors in cultural policymaking, policy execution and policy research this study reveals the equity instruments in place in Finnish cultural policy and funding. The conceptual framework of the thesis is grounded on the ideals of equity and equality, and concepts of diversity, discrimination, and intersectionality. These concepts will position this study amongst the current discourse on equity and guide the interpretations of the findings. The theoretical framework is founded on Finnish cultural policy, cultural rights, and current research on cultural policy. Through thematic analysis and critical discourse analysis of the written material and interviews, this thesis will draw a comprehensive picture of the state of equity within Finnish cultural policy and funding.
Valoma is a second year master’s student in Arts Managements, Society and Creative Entrepreneurship. Valoma is an experienced production manager with a 20-year career with international festivals. Valoma has presented her research on the topics of decolonization and cultural rights in Finnish Conference on Cultural Policy Research in 2023 and in ENCATC 2023. With her thesis Valoma is diving deeper into cultural policy investigating measures of equity within Finnish cultural policy and funding.
Spiros Delegos (DocMus, Sibelius Academy, Uniarts Helsinki)
Voices of Rebetiko in Musical Heterotopias: From Research Study Programme to Audiences
In my doctoral research, I endeavour to interpret musico-culturally amalgamated expressions and practices in interwar rebetiko and examine critically its representations regarding the ‘East-West’ dipole and the diverse meanings of ‘Greekness’, by employing the Foucauldian concept of heterotopia as an analytical tool. This approach utilises the perspective of historical ethnomusicology (including musical analysis) and, therefore, I belong to the “Research Study Programme” of the SibA. Thus, my research output does not result in artistic components, in other words, there is no performance.
Conversely, performing and writing music constitute essential aspects of my identity, as I am a musician of rebetiko among other—both historical and contemporary—repertoires. Rebetiko is an interwar urban musical genre of mixed origin, considered to fall into the category of urban popular music in Greece. From such a perspective, I should be regarded as a rebetiko revivalist; nevertheless, I frequently wonder what the voice of rebetiko and of its musico-theoretical and stylistic attributes is nowadays, in particular in my own music-making. In my case, what are the relationships formed in the triangle: Research, Musicianship, and Society? Does music praxis enable my research to be reflected in society, even though it is formally of a non-artistic nature? Could heterotopia as an analytical device also interpret modern compositions with rebetiko-related elements such as my own music? Might such pieces be viewed as musical heterotopias? How could audiences perceive them? Although the above questions are on the periphery of my doctoral project, they represent a fresh prospect in my research field.
In this regard, I will perform a personal composition on the lavta (a historical lute from Istanbul with movable frets, associated with the broader modal context of rebetiko) and have a PowerPoint presentation. In parallel, the audience will be asked to become involved via a questionnaire.
Spiros Delegos is a doctoral candidate at the Sibelius Academy Uniarts Helsinki, holds a Master’s degree in “Ethnomusicology and Cultural Anthropology” from the University of Athens and a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics from the University of Patras. He has studied Greek traditional and makam music on the lavta at the Municipal Conservatory of Patras, theory of European Classical Music at the Philharmonic Foundation Conservatory of Patras, Ottoman music and classical mandolin privately. Furthermore, he has got an excellent knowledge of the folk guitar and the Greek three-course bouzouki and baglamas. As a musician, he has appeared at numerous musical venues, live concerts and festivals and has composed music for theatre. He is a music teacher at the Philharmonic Foundation Conservatory of Patras, the founder/musical director of the “Urban Greek Popular Music Orchestra” (a large ensemble with string, wind instruments, etc.), and has given an array of musical workshops on makam modality and harmonisation in rebetiko. As a scholar, he has presented several papers at (ethno)musicology conferences and published articles in Greek and international scientific journals; he currently translates-edits into Greek the scientific collective book “Greek Music in America” (University Press of Mississippi).
Adriano Adewale (MuTri, Sibelius Academy, Uniarts Helsinki)
Comunal – A Joint Experience of Music Making
One pivotal dimension of my doctoral research project revolves around the dynamic interaction between the community and musicians. While music is widely recognized as a conduit for communication, the communal exchanges between musicians and the community are not always seamlessly integrated. This prompts an exploration of any existing hierarchies in which musicians and communities may be positioned.
Within Afro-Brazilian communities, certain aspects shed light on this issue, encompassing the manner in which musicians and communities engage, their physical organization, and the role music plays in serving the community. The unique dynamics of Afro-Brazilian communities offer valuable insights into the intricate relationship between music, communal structure, and interaction patterns.
Adriano Adewale is a Brazilian percussionist, composer, and educator currently pursuing a doctorate at the folk department of the Sibelius Academy, Uniarts. He earned a Master’s degree in performance from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and a Bachelor’s degree in music/performance from the University of São Paulo Estate.
In the realm of research, Adriano has presented at the DIP conference at the Royal Academy of Music/London and is actively engaged in crafting an article titled “Sonic Equity” in collaboration with Professor Nathan Riki Thomson. His doctoral research, titled ‘The Art of Communication – Searching for the Essence of Music Making through the Berimbau,’ delves into how musicians can express themselves using a minimal amount of tools.
Adriano has collaborated with renowned musicians such as Antonio Forcione, Britten Sinfonia, Benjamim Taubkin, Joanna McGregor, and Seckou Keita. His diverse discography includes several albums, notably the critically acclaimed solo album ‘Sementes’ (Segue Records) and ‘Raizes’ (Caboclos Records). Engaging in various ensemble projects, Adriano has contributed to AKA-trio, Elda Trio, Subsonic Trio, and the collaborative release ‘Sonic Poems of an Unknown Land’ with double bass player Nathan Riki Thomson.
Throughout his career, Adriano has served as a curator and artistic director. Notable contributions include curating the ‘Festival Brasileiro’ at Lakeside Theatre/Colchester and composing the score for ‘Undivided Lovers,’ a dance performance choreographed by Kate Flatt and presented by Phoenix Dance Company, based on Shakespeare’s sonnets. Adriano has also held artist-in-residence positions at Wiltshire Music Centre, Cecil Sharp House, and Lakeside Theatre Colchester.
Antti Snellman (MuTri, Music Education, Sibelius Academy, Uniarts Helsinki)
Teacher Autonomy – or Isolation? Workshop Model for Critically Reflective Practice in Finnish Music Schools
Introduction
Two educational concepts that define the practice and professional development of Finnish (music) school teachers are their autonomy and reflexivity. The pedagogical freedom to individualise teaching according to each student’s unique needs (teacher autonomy), and the ability for critically re-examining one’s own practice from different perspectives (reflexivity) contribute to many positive outcomes such as job commitment, increased motivation and well-being, empowerment, high-quality learning outcomes and professionalism.
Nevertheless, the ambiguity of these two concepts can sometimes lead to misunderstanding of their true nature. This, in turn, may result in teacher isolation, and consequently to teachers’ negative attitude towards teaching, a drop in teaching standards, anxiety, and possibly to burnouts. My research aims to offer one solution for music schools and their teachers to avoid these negative consequences.
Methods and Results
In this paper presentation I introduce the content and preliminary results of the workshop model where six voluntary teachers of different musical styles, ages, and working backgrounds met in facilitated monthly sessions for one year. In these sessions they tested multi-faceted reflective tools designed to understand what supporting autonomy and reflexivity means on a practical level. The preliminary results suggest that participation helped the teachers to see their practice in a new light, feel empowered, and for some participants, it seemed to also have a positive impact on their well-being.
Output
The refined and more generic version of the model, which will be offered online (2026) and hosted by Uniarts, can be modified and deployed in a variety of educational settings and domains. The website will also function as an open and permanent platform for sharing research-based resources on research-related topics. The final aim of the research is to support teachers’ reflexivity and autonomy for a more democratic and sustainable educational culture.
Mr. Snellman is a saxophone teacher, freelance musician and a doctoral candidate at the Sibelius Academy (University of the Arts (Helsinki, Finland)). As a teacher he has been working at the Pop & Jazz Conservatory (since 1993) with children and teenagers with the aim of creating a democratic classroom environment where the needs, goals, and values of each student are both identified and respected. As a musician he continues to tour and record domestically and internationally with a variety of artists and groups in the field of popular music.
In his doctoral studies at the department of music education (MuTri), Mr. Snellman is interested in promoting music school teachers’ reflective practice and their students’ intrinsic motivation. In his ongoing research he has designed a prototype of a workshop model where six voluntary instrumental teachers participated in monthly small-group sessions for one academic year experiencing different reflective tools to critically re-examine their habitual thinking and practice.
The refined and more generic version of the model, which will be offered online and hosted by Uniarts, can be modified and deployed in a variety of educational settings and domains. The website will also function as an open and permanent platform for sharing research-based resources on research-related topics.
Timothy Smith (Research Institute, University of the Arts Helsinki)
Neurodiversity as a Lens for Access and Equity in the Research of Arts and Arts Education
The thematic question for this presentation is: what might research in arts and arts education look like through a neurodiversity studies lens? This presentation will introduce neurodiversity studies and its application within the research of arts and arts education. It will entwine a primer on the concepts of neurodiversity studies with a very brief autoethnographic journey of the presenter’s experience as a multiply neurodivergent former student and current art educator and researcher. Neurodiversity studies encompasses an expansive variety of neurodivergent lived experiences — such as ADHD, learning disabilities, and autism, as well as various mental health conditions. Neurodiversity refers to what Bertilsdotter Rosqvist, et al., (2020) refer to as “perceived variations seen in cognitive, affectual, and sensory functioning differing from… the ‘neurotypical’ population”. It is estimated that over 20% of arts professionals are neurodivergent (Freeman & Morris, 2021). It is crucial for researchers of arts and arts education to be aware of key concepts of neurodiversity studies as a mode of recognizing and supporting the lived experiences of neurodivergent students. The outcome of this presentation for researchers and educators is to learn about the key concepts of neurodiversity studies, its engagement with the arts and arts education, and how it can engender the refinement of diversity, equity, and accessibility for arts research, and teaching, learning, and curriculum development in arts education.
Timothy Smith, Ph.D., MFA, is an artist, educator, and university researcher in the Artist Pedagogy theme at the Research Institute. His research focuses on critical disability and neurodiversity studies approaches to higher education in the arts, with a particular emphasis on analyzing and challenging ableism in university institutions. His current research project is titled “Artistic Processes of University Art Students Self-Identifying Along the Neurodiversity Spectrum”. The study seeks to learn about the neurodiversity experience of students’ engagement with artistic thinking through their artistic processes.
Hanne Närhinsalo (MuTri, Music Education, Sibelius Academy, Uniarts Helsinki)
Co-constructing visions for student-centered and holistic teaching of musicianship skills: teacher collaboration as a supporter of teacher change in the Finnish music schools
The aim of this participative action research is to co-construct with a teacher group a broader understanding about musicianship skills, collect good teaching practices, envision new ones, and define what kind of Pedagogical content knowledge teachers need to support the student’s experiential and holistic musical growth. In Finnish music schools the studies of advanced syllabus for music in basic education consist of instrument studies, orchestra, or chamber music and musicianship skills. Musicianship skills combine theoretical and analytical content, aural training, and creative musical tasks. According to the national curriculum framework, the teaching of musicianship skills is expected to support the student’s experiential and holistic musical growth instead of having the student complete fragmented exercises, common in the past music theory and aural training courses.
The empirical data of the study will be generated through a collaborative knowledge creation project with ten teachers of musicianship skills. In individual interviews and five workshops I utilize the process of Appreciative Inquiry, to progress from current best teaching practices to future educational visions. In the teacher workshops, the development of the teacher’s own work is interwoven with Collaborative knowledge creation about musicianship skills, identifying current working teaching practices, envisioning new ones, and identifying the Pedagogical Content Knowledge the teacher needs. Blending Critical inquiry to the process helps to deconstruct the long canon of the teaching tradition.
Hanne Närhinsalo is a doctoral researcher at the University of the Arts Helsinki, Sibelius Academy, Department of Music, Jazz and Folk Music. She is also a lecturer in musicianship skills at Music Institute Juvenalia in Espoo. She holds a master’s degree in music education (Sibelius Academy) and theory and aural training pedagogue (Pirkanmaa Polytechnic). Närhinsalo’s research interest is about the pedagogical development and teaching practice of Musicianship skills.
Juho Laitinen (CfAR, Research Institute, Uniarts Helsinki)
How to keep one’s head in the presence of a tiger – learning together in experimental music
The avantgarde has traditionally responded to the call for aesthetic, social and political revolution in the hope for a new world order. If art is understood as circulating commodified art objects in a market-driven art world, artistic action seems to have lost its potential to subvert. Thus, avantgarde in the customary sense may be a thing of the past.
What stays current is society’s need for radical measures, as the world is not in order. Another kind of art based on affirmative and inclusive practices could help. As a case study I present my work on Cornelius Cardew’s ”The Great Learning”, a large-scale experimental composition with ritualistic, theatrical and philosophical leanings. The five-year research project has brought together a large number of amateur and professional music-makers to act, discuss and learn from one another.
Our study has often meant letting go of habitual responses geared to convince and astonish. Instead, we have strived to make inventive, practical, consistent and ethically sound choices within an open, trusting and polyphonic artistic discourse. According to principles outlined in the eponymous text by Confucius, participants have been “looking into one’s own heart and acting on the results”, “watching with affection how people grow” and seeking balance even “in the presence of a tiger”.
We have spent an extensive amount of time together in meetings, rehearsals and performances. We have also travelled, shared meals and bathed together. Importantly, all activities have been open to anyone interested to take part as they wish. This is a fundamental departure from the hierarchies and norms of contemporary classical music.
At this lecture-recital I will elaborate on the underlying principles and their practical applications in our work. Members of the study group will join me in performing music by Alison Knowles, Takehisa Kosugi and Christian Wolff.
Juho Laitinen. I work as an instrumentalist, composer, pedagogue and scholar. My focus is on philosophical, aesthetic and ethical structures within avantgarde art. I study a holistic dramaturgy of body, space and time from performative and conceptual points-of-view. My multidisciplinary work includes elements of theatre, visual arts and literature.
I investigate acoustic and metaphorical resonance as well as physical and psychological mechanisms of listening. I study ambiguities within music and noise, music and other artistic disciplines, composition and improvisation, music as material and metaphysical substance as well as artistic activity and an everyday reality. I promote an open and equal dialogue on making and sharing art.
I have studied the cello and voice in Turku, London and New York and have received a doctoral degree from Sibelius Academy in 2013. I direct Tulkinnanvaraista, a forum for new and experimental music. I’ve composed acoustic and electronic music and made site-specific installations as well as live and video art. Over the years I’ve performed and taught extensively both in Finland and abroad.
Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi (The Norwegian Academy of Music)
Opera Meets Popular Music: OPERA POP. A Compositional Exploration of Critical Music
In my research, I seek to develop compositional strategies that acknowledge music as filled with cultural codes and connotations. I forward the idea that music is never “neutral”. This approach, I call composition of critical music.
My aim is to compose music that interprets and takes part in myths present in historical opera and today’s popular culture. I focus on Western representations of genders and how gender stereotypes come to expression in some of the shared cultural narratives. The research does not result in an opera, but an album of “opera pop songs”.
Observing expressions from opera and popular music next to each other allows to combine ideas from the domains that are often considered “high culture” and “mainstream culture” and to grab ideas that circulate among us. This serves to view opera, too, as not universal. Today, classical and romantic opera is still often mediated through universalizing ideas, claiming that the characters, feelings, and subjects of their operas are universally relatable.
Throughout this research I collaborate with the production company Stargate, who has produced music to several commercial artists. I compose the musical material before the recording sessions, but a significant part of it will also be realized through studio sampling and mixing. Exploring forms of collaborating and defining “studio composition” as a relevant way of composing will be one of the methodological challenges and outcomes of this project.
I develop compositional strategies particularly designed to include perspectives of the social world that each of us encounters. Examples of these methods are “musical dumpster diving” and “musical denaturalisation” (compare: “denaturalisation” in gender research). Musical clichés are central to this project. This way of approaching composition challenges some of the unarticulated rules within composition as a discipline, regarding what types of materials are “acceptable” to engage with.
Rebecka Sofia Ahvenniemi is a composer and philosopher living in Norway. She is an artistic research fellow at the Norwegian Academy of Music. In many of her musical works, as well as research and writing, she engages in questions that critically concern culture and society.
Rebecka studied composition of music and philosophy at the University of Bergen, the University of Helsinki, Freie Universitet Berlin, and Columbia University. She finished her doctoral degree in philosophy in the fall 2021 with the thesis “Musical Composition as Lingering Reflection. Exploring the Critical Potential of Music”. Further, she has taught composition at the Grieg academy in Bergen and Musikkhøgskolen in Oslo. She has also been a lecturer at the Department of Philosophy at the University of Bergen.
Rebecka has been actively engaged in cultural politics through different organizations since 2013, as a board member of Arts Council Norway, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, and The Norwegian Society of Composers
Neea Lamminmäki (MuTri, Music Education, Sibelius Academy, Uniarts Helsinki)
Näppäri music education as a counterlabelling act and critical counter-practice
This presentation dismantles the myth of neutral music education by discussing labelling as a political act. Labels construct the world, establishing boundaries to organise complex phenomena and creating new connections. Through our understanding of musical genres and pedagogical approaches, labels can have positive and negative consequences and reveal hierarchies and hidden or visible power. Therefore, labels construct music teachers’ mental models, understood as institutionalised ‘reality’ that steers thinking and actions, revealing the assumptions and beliefs within a specific social system.
Finnish Näppäri music education offers anyone interested a possibility to play in a low-hierarchy orchestra regardless of age or experience with music. Näppäri music, as a playful and imaginative combination of folk, classical, and popular music, is based on the UNESCO-inscribed Kaustinen fiddle playing tradition, where all locals have equal access to participatory music-making. Näppäri advocates music as part of humans’ social interaction and a natural part of everyday life: it can be played anywhere, anytime and with anyone.
Presenting Finnish Näppäri music education as a counterlabelling act and critical counter-practice, I will discuss shaping the taken-for-granted gaze in institutionalised music education by emphasising aspects marginal or non-existent in the dominant music school pedagogy in the Finnish Basic Education in the Arts. Based on an upcoming book chapter, I will show how counterlabelling can reorganise mental models on how music can be played, with whom, when, and where.
Neea Lamminmäki is a (folk) musician, pedagogue, and researcher at the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts Helsinki. Born in Kaustinen, she is a Näppäri music educator with a master of music from the Sibelius Academy. In music education research, her particular interest is in inclusive intergenerational teaching of folk music. As a piano teacher, she specialises in improvisation and free accompaniment skills at the piano school she founded in 2019. As a musician, she is known as an expressive player of a traditional instrument used in Finnish folk music, the pump organ.
Alicia Lucendo-Noriega (Doctoral Education in Music, Arts and Culture Studies, Specialisation of Music Education, University of Jyväskylä)
What makes music drive social-emotional development? Preliminary findings from a scoping review
Background: Music education has been associated with several aspects of children’s social-emotional development. However, mixed results and different methodological challenges have emerged from previous studies. Thus, further research is needed to clarify what are the musical components that might facilitate such behaviors. The current project has addressed this question by conducting a scoping review of previous published studies and non-research material in the topic.
Objectives: This review aims at synthesizing the evidence available in the field, by analyzing the musical elements and characteristics of the interventions of previous music interventions targeting social-emotional skills.
Methods: The focus is on school-aged children and intervention research projects, detailing the inclusion/exclusion criteria and the search strategy in the published review protocol. The current presentation details each stage of the review, from the first step of abstract and title screening of over 3000 records to the final sample of 90 studies included.
Results: Besides this, the preliminary analysis of the sample selected is also presented. The analysis focuses on determining the characteristics and musical components of previous research interventions that have been linked with social emotional skills in school-aged children. The analysis takes into consideration several aspects such as methodological elements (randomization, control group, type of measurements), conceptual approach (definition of social-emotional skills, objectives of intervention), contextual features (group characteristics, country, context, and time of intervention) as well as musical elements (methodology, types of activities, session structure).
Conclusions: The results from this review process hope to contribute to a clearer description of how the various aspects of music can support the development of social-emotional learning. Besides this, through the description of the review results, this short presentation aims at providing a discussion forum between current professionals about their views and experiences on the topic.
Alicia Lucendo-Noriega is a doctoral researcher at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her research focuses on the topic of music education and social emotional learning, carried out on naturalistic seetings. She holds a master’s degree in educational sciences (University of Helsinki, Finland) and a master’s degree in music therapy from the international university of La Rioja. Her experience ranges from being a classroom music primary teacher and a cellist to working as a camp counselor and at an education non-profit organization. She is passionate about exploring the benefits of music education and creative practices in children’s development and inclusive education.