Public forum about music education to be held at UPEI on March 28
Members of the public are invited to attend a free public forum on music education on Saturday, March 28, from 1:00 to 4:15 pm, at the UPEI Performing Arts Centre.
The forum is being held to present the findings of Access to Music Education (AMusE), a multidisciplinary research project led by Dr. Annabel Cohen, professor of psychology at UPEI, with co-lead Dr. Linyuan Guo-Brennan, professor of education.
During the forum, there will be presentations from parents; teachers; UPEI faculty members and current or former students from Education, Business, Economics, Psychology, Music, and Mathematics; and other stakeholder representatives. Audience members will have the opportunity to provide feedback. There will also be musical performances.
The goal of the AMusE project, which began in 2021, was to determine whether the Canadian school system meets the need for musical education, to identify possible inequities and barriers, and to consider ways to reduce them. The investigators also sought to understand the musical experience of educational stakeholders.
“Music streaming makes music far more accessible than it was even a decade ago,” said Dr. Cohen. “Music consequently has become increasingly a part of the lives of most individuals. But what about access to music education? While school children today know a lot of music, do they understand it in the same way as they do STEM subjects?”
Listening to music is not the same as understanding principles of musical structure, differences in styles, the cultural context of different genres, singing a song, singing in harmony, playing a musical instrument, or composing, she said. These skills have parallels in learning about languages, and they deserve no less status as valuable knowledge.
“Children in primary school can sing, make up songs, play instruments, have fundamental knowledge of music theory, but by the time they finish high school, how many of them will still be musically competent in this way?”
The AMusE research team also examined factors that could affect the availability of music education in schools and concluded that this is dependent on many things, only one of which is funding.
“Does the child want to take music in the first place? What and who influences preference for music classes?”
Snacks, coffee, and non-alcoholic beverages will be available at 12:45 pm, prior to the 1:00 pm start of the forum, with refreshment breaks during the event.
The project was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s New Frontiers in Research Fund-Exploration stream.
Attendance at the event is free, but people are asked to register. To register, and for further information, please go to https://musicog.discoveryspace.ca/amuse.
