Crafting Musical Encounters

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Crafting Musical Encounters is a participatory action research project that presents an inquiry into how pedagogies of music can facilitate inclusivity through a focus on social emotional learning (SEL). As an intervention, this inquiry lent itself to an exploratory case study: eight music workshops with children (ages 3-7) and their parents. In the face of increasingly blurred boundaries between humans and technology, we were interested in how pedagogies of music can equip children with the skills to navigate and feel included a rapidly changing, and isolating world. Through our intervention, with sixteen children and their parents, we hoped to explore how models of music education in early childhood can move beyond existing instructional paradigms that exclusively emphasize the development of musical skill. Situated in Abu Dhabi, we examine the ways in which a post-colonial framework for culturally responsive design, and the values of SEL can be brought together within a larger framework of inclusion in our present geographical and socio-political context.

 Keywords: music, inclusion, holistic, pedagogy, social emotional learning, early childhood

PUBLICATIONS

 Muthumudalige, Shyalina & Churchill, Warren (2026), ‘Crafting Musical Encounters: A Pilot Study’, International Journal of Music in Early Childhood, in press. 

PRESENTATIONS 

This project was presented in an interactive installation format at the NYUAD Arts and Humanities Capstone Festival in The Cube (2024). Take a look at my installation here!

CONFERENCES