Changing Children’s Attitudes to Disability through Music: A Learning Intervention by Young Disabled Mentors

Abstract

Children with disabilities are at greater risk of social exclusion. In part, this results from the negative perceptions of disability held by their peers. An innovative, school-based project used creative music-making sessions facilitated by young disabled musicians to nurture more positive attitudes among children aged 9 years in four schools, with two classes from each. In all, around 200 pupils were involved in weekly sessions totalling 16 h. Their attitudes to disability were assessed before and after participating in the project, along with the reactions of parents and teachers. Pupils were significantly more disposed to interacting with children with disabilities and to persons with disabilities more generally as well as to having a teacher with a disability. Parents and teachers confirmed the pupils’ enthusiasm for the project and the impact it had on them. A core driver for change appeared to be sharing enjoyable musical activities with competent musicians who had disabilities. Further research should explore the potential of mentoring by disabled persons in other arts activities and sports to provide further validation of this approach.

Adolescents' implicit and explicit attitudes toward their peers with genetic conditions

“…In this respect, our broader range was beneficial in eliciting some differences that may be related to age. For example, we noted unsurprisingly better cognition among older adolescents (Álvarez‐Delgado et al, 2021; Anderson et al, 2021; Dias et al, 2020; Donovan et al, 2019; McCarron et al, 2022) and a lesser impact of social desirability bias among younger adolescents (Lindsay & Edwards, 2013; Mueller, 2019; Stylianidou & Mavrou, 2021; Szumski et al, 2020). However, our study was not designed to investigate these aspects of the social identity of our participants specifically.…”

“…As adolescents develop their moral compasses and values, they may be more likely to be motivated to take action to address social issues such as ableism. The amenable nature of the adolescent brain to educational intervention has been demonstrated in several studies (Álvarez-Delgado et al, 2021;Anderson et al, 2021;Donovan et al, 2019;McCarron et al, 2022).…”

Promoting the Wellbeing of Youth with Disabilities through Music Mentoring

“…The music sessions provided by Project Sparks had the dual aims of increasing the children's participation and facility in music-making, but also nurturing more inclusive beliefs toward disability and social diversity in general. The latter aspect is reported more fully in an accompanying paper [25].…”