Creativity in Hong Kong’s special schools’ music classrooms

ABSTRACT

To investigate music teachers’ perceptions and concerns in fostering music creativity of students with intellectual disabilities, findings are presented from a study of nine music teachers purposely sampled from across all three categories (mild, medium, severe) of Hong Kong’s special school for students with intellectual disabilities. Personal profiles identify respondents’ displaying three professional knowledge gaps – music expertise, special-education training and prior experience of being taught ‘creativity’. Findings also indicate that respondents add to the creativity literature: first by supplementing Hargreaves’ [2012. “Musical Imagination: Perception and Production, Beauty and Creativity.” Psychology of Music 40 (5): 539–557] ‘process’ to include ‘music making’ and ‘body movement’, and second, that music creativity may be described as a spectrum that embraces various forms of expressions.

KEYWORDS:

• Music education
• intellectual disabilities
• creativity
• Hong Kong

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the General Research Fund of Hong Kong Research Grants Council [Project number: 12603817].

Notes on contributors

Marina Wai-yee Wong

Marina Wai-yee Wong is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Doctor of Education Program at Hong Kong Baptist University. She obtained a PhD at the University of British Columbia in Canada. She is involved in teacher education courses in the areas of music education. She has obtained various competitive research and development grants for developing integrated-arts curriculum and inclusive music curriculum for mainstream schools and adapted music curriculum for children with intellectual disabilities in special schools.