Music learning can change the educational life for disadvantaged students

26 Sept

Music has been used as an intervention around the world to help students, and inevitably whole communities, who are living in challenging circumstances. These circumstances have a profound effect on children’s brain development and their education, and music programs have had seemingly miraculous impacts on both the social and educational issues associated with disadvantage.

This study is a longitudinal, instrumentally-based music program for 7-12-year-old students. They did small group learning, and ensemble learning with high-stakes performances with professional musicians to work towards. Here is a kicker of a summary statement towards the end of the paper.

“Results of the present longitudinal experiment are important in showing that music training may counterbalance the negative influence of living in low socio-economic backgrounds by enhancing several core cognitive functions: general intelligence, processing speed, concentration abilities and reading precision.”

Music learning: Counterbalancing disadvantage with every note.

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