Marginalised youth, criminal justice and performing arts: young people's experiences of music-making

ABSTRACT

In recent years a plethora of arts-based projects and interventions targeting marginalised children and young people have emerged a number of which have focussed specifically on music-making. Resulting research has often highlighted the social, psychological and emotional benefits involved although few studies have explored the connections between music-making and mentoring with young people in educational contexts. This paper comprises a small-scale, qualitative study of one such intervention in a secondary school in the South of England. Analysis of transcripts from one-to-one interviews with participants (pupils) aged 11–17 years reveals various ways in which music-making facilitated positive change such as increased confidence, improved attitudes towards teachers and peers, feelings of calm, and better communication skills. The paper concludes by suggesting that music-making activity may confer significant psycho-social benefits for young people, particularly when combined with mentoring support.

KEYWORDS:

• Performing arts
• music-making
• mentoring
• marginalised youth
• qualitative research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In line with the work of Halsey (2007), we acknowledge that processes of incarceration and reincarceration (and related statistics) should be viewed as the collective responsibility of both the individual concerned and the formal (administrative/bureaucratic) and informal (social/familial) structures and mechanisms in play.

2. In order to preserve anonymity, pseudonyms have been used throughout.

3. Prior to the onset of the study, ethical approval was gained from the University of Gloucestershire's Research Ethics Sub-Committee (RESC). Variations on interview timings were solely due to the availability of respondents.