New paper: A participatory approach in music education: Searching for guidelines for a dynamic and diverse learning environment

My new paper is out now! 馃檪

Malina Sarnowska,聽Adam 艢wita艂a,聽Katarzyna M. Wyrzykowska, A participatory approach in music education: Searching for guidelines for a dynamic and diverse learning environment, In: D.Forrest ed., Proceedings of the International Society for Music Education. 33rd World Conference on Music Education, ISME, Baku 2018.

The research is a聽case study of a music education programme based on a聽participatory approach and聽introduced in a community after school centre in the聽Praga鈥揚o艂udnie district, Warsaw. The main聽research methods were participant聽observation, autoethnography and free-form interviews. The聽research was conducted from June to November 2017, the research team consisted of 4 people: 2聽music educators and 2 music sociologists. The participants of the study were children attending聽music lessons (age group 7-14, with a slight predominance of 10-and-less year old). Due to its聽short duration and narrow range of research activities, the聽study is of exploratory nature. This聽research paper is an attempt to depict and analyse the characteristics聽of informal music education聽based on a presented approach and to put a light on research areas, as well as to define specific聽research topics for further investigation. The main principles of the applied participatory approach聽were having an open-ended learning process and practical curriculum making (Elliott, 1995). The聽children were offered free access to a聽variety of music instruments. The study does not聽provide聽sufficient data for general conclusions about the influence of the applied聽music education model on聽social behaviours. Nonetheless, a strong correlation between the participant鈥檚 overall emotional聽disposition and the preferred kind of musical expression was聽observed.

Full paper is available HERE or HERE.

Photo by聽Austin Distel聽on聽Unsplash