Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemFrom social connectedness to equitable access: an action research project illuminating the opportunities and the barriers to accessing music for young people with disability transitioning from school to adult life( 2017)The action research project described in this thesis emerged from a partnership between the Community Inclusion Team of a large, not-for-profit disability service organisation in Australia (the Organisation) and the National Music Therapy Research Unit at the University of Melbourne (NaMTRU). The project developed following a question from the Organisation about how music could be an engaging part of young people’s lives as they transitioned from school to adult life. Community inclusion team members of the Organisation had identified that young people who accessed their services, many of who live with more complex disabilities, often experienced challenges in establishing a sense of social connectedness during the transition. The Organisation were interested in how involvement in music may play a role in addressing this challenge. As such, the project began with a focus on the role of music in social connectedness for young people. However, as the project unfolded, the focus began to broaden into the more pressing issue of equitable access to music. The project developed amid the backdrop of the introduction of a new disability funding model in Australia, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). This change within the disability sector has had a significant influence on many aspects of this inquiry. An action research approach (Reason and Bradbury, 2008) was used for the project within a transformative paradigm (Mertens, 2009) as it relates to issues of social justice and human rights. This framework encompasses the aim of personal and social transformation within communities that experience oppression and discrimination. Grounded in community music therapy theory and disability studies, the project took the form of four cycles of planning, action and reflection. Cycle 1 involved a critical interpretive synthesis of the literature. Cycle 2 involved semi structured interviews with young people accessing the Organisation to learn about their experiences of social connectedness. Cycle 3 involved focus group discussions with facilitators of music programs accessible to young people to begin building a picture of opportunities to access music and finally, cycle 4 involved the establishment of an ongoing, collaborative community music program with a group of young people. Findings indicate that young people with disability lack sufficient opportunities to access music as a resource in their lives. A variety of opportunities exist that offer different ways of participating in music, but barriers to this participation are continually faced. These include limitations on independent access to information about the existence of programs and opportunities, inadequate funding for independent action and a lack of community infrastructure to accommodate people with differing needs. Once an opportunity was made available in this project, young people embraced the chance to work collaboratively to create the music program into what they needed. This included growing the group membership to satisfy social needs, taking on leadership and marketing roles, making group decisions about the music, the venue and performances. The research project outcomes have implications for roles and actions for music therapists and other facilitators of music programs aimed at a structural level to increase opportunities for young people to access music as a resource in their lives.
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ItemMusical identities of young people recovering from mental illness( 2015)This thesis details a Participatory project investigating how and why promoting young people’s musical identities can facilitate their recovery from mental illness. Studies describe how young people use music listening for managing aspects of their mental health across community-based (McFerran & Saarikallio, 2014; Saarikallio & Erkkila, 2007) and mental health settings (Cheong-Clinch, 2013). Music therapy is also articulated as a way to facilitate processes of recovery from mental illness (McCaffrey, Edwards, & Fannon, 2011; Solli, Rolvsjord, & Borg, 2013). Despite growing awareness of the potential of music to support recovery from mental illness, little is known about what conditions actually facilitate growth of musical identity in ways that foster recovery processes. This project aimed to address this gap by investigating what is needed in order to promote young people’s musical identities in ways that facilitate their recovery from mental illness. The intention was to understand both the processes involved and the resources required to facilitate recovery. A Participatory orientation (Minkler & Wallerstein, 2008) was chosen to align with the recovery approach (Davidson, Row, Tandora, O'Connell, & Lawless, 2009; Slade, 2009b) of the youth mental health service where this study took place. The Participatory philosophy was also seen as appropriate to the social agenda of the study in seeking to address young people’s access to musical resources to promote their recovery. Eleven young people currently attending the music therapy program at the youth mental health service chose to participate across two emergent cycles of action and reflection. In the first cycle, young people participated in collaborative qualitative interviews exploring how their musical identities changed with experiences of mental illness and recovery. A critical interpretation of Constructivist Grounded Theory was used to gather and analyse the data. The finding from this cycle was a constructed grounded theory that detailed young people’s recovery of musical identity. A second cycle of research emerged from this theory, to explore what community-based resources are needed to further facilitate recovery. This cycle involved mapping young people’s musical needs compared to what was available and possible in the local community. Findings from this study were an identified set of musical needs of young people, and the initiation of the Youth Music Action Group to begin addressing the meeting of these needs through community partnerships and advocacy. Findings from this study indicate that promoting musical identity can facilitate young people’s recovery from mental illness by: contributing to a health-based identity, facilitating meaning-making, and supporting social participation. However, the findings indicate a number of conditions are necessary to facilitate these processes. First, the music therapy theory through which to construct these processes needs to accommodate both the pathology of young people’s expression of musical symptoms as well as acknowledgement of the resource of musical identity for recovery. Second, music therapy needs to be available to support young people’s recovery of musical identity during early stages. Third, community-based music resources need to be available and appropriate to young people immediately following their experience of music therapy. Fourth, modes of research need to expand in order to promote greater democratic participation of young people in ways that promote their equal citizenship. These findings contribute to music therapy and youth mental health knowledge, and can inform future service design.
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ItemUnderstanding and articulating the processa and meaning of collaboration in participatory music projects with marginalised young people and their supporting communities( 2013)Participatory approaches are increasingly emphasised in music therapy, advocating collaboration with participants for empowerment and social change. Participatory philosophy underpins Community Music Therapy (CoMT) and is the theoretical framework for the study presented in this thesis. To date, CoMT theorists have advocated strongly for participatory approaches in music therapy to promote health and wellbeing in communities (Stige, Andsell, Elefant & Pavlicevic, 2010; Stige & Aaro, 2012), and a growing number of case study examples offer contextual examples of participatory practice in music therapy. Whilst collaboration is frequently referred to as an underlying principle and feature of participatory music therapy practice, there is a notable lack of literature that practically examines the process of collaboration with communities beyond single case examples, or the meaning of that collaboration for the community participants themselves. Rolvsjord (2010) has identified collaboration in music therapy as a shared, dialogic process of negotiation between music therapist and participants that is characterised by equality, mutuality and active participation in decision-making. In CoMT projects that are, by nature, outwards-facing and ecologically focussed, engaging in a genuinely shared and dialogic collaboration with community participants can be complex and challenging. This thesis describes a study that aimed to describe this challenge. In this thesis I present learnings from an action research project in Melbourne, Australia. Three communities supporting marginalised young people engaged in participatory music projects with a music therapist. In repeating cycles of action and reflection, community participants and I worked together to plan, develop and implement their music projects. Alongside this practical decision-making, we reflected periodically on the process of collaborating together and the meaning of the process for the participants involved. Throughout the process, these reflections with individual communities were combined and shared to develop an overall understanding of collaborative process between the three groups. Comparative analysis of the process of collaboration with the three participating communities focussed on two key areas: to understand and articulate the process of collaboration with communities supporting marginalised young people; and, to understand what aspects of the collaborative process were meaningful for the participants involved. Using these key areas as a frame, learnings were interpreted from the empirical material in this study using an emergent, iterative analysis process. The analysis of empirical material identified that collaboration in participatory music projects has the potential to promote positive growth for participants in the form of strengthened connections with peers, increased self-esteem and confidence and empowerment. Learnings further indicated that this potential for empowerment is mediated by the degree of alignment between the structure of the chosen music project and particular contextual and individual factors, supporting a need for active and engaged collaboration to maximise this alignment, and subsequently the positive growth potential of participatory music projects. Based on the interpretation of empirical material, I propose a structure of collaborative process that accounts for contextual variation between communities. This structure is based on three interpersonal interactions between music therapists and community collaborators, and highlights vital characteristics of collaboration. Critical aspects include the importance of a ‘hangout period’ prior to active collaboration, and the ongoing nature of negotiations within the collaborative process. Implications from these learnings are proposed in the form of a new understanding of collaboration in music therapy - as a positive growth practice. This understanding is based on underlying principles of shared power and mutual responsibility. Particular emphasis is given to the critical and under-explored role that participant investment plays in music therapy collaborations.