Young Adolescents’ Musical Identities and Well-being: Narratives of Psychological Needs Satisfaction in Music Education

• In Event: Multidisciplinary Research Perspectives on Arts Education for Middle Level Learners

Abstract

Objectives & Framing
Music education has the potential to have a significant impact on developing student musical identities, both positive and negative, an impact that can inform an individual’s lifelong engagement with music (Hargreaves et al., 2018; Pitts, 2012). In particular, general music or classroom music in the middle years provides an opportunity for students to healthily experiment and try out potential musical identities. Musical identities are recognized as individualized, dynamic, contextualized, and enacted (MacDonald & Saarikallio, 2022). Musical identities can be categorized as having two broad interacting roles: identities in music (IIM) refers to music’s professional and cultural roles, and music in identities (MII) refers to the various ways music is part of the broader self (Hargreaves et al., 2017). Self-determination theory (SDT) (Ryan & Deci, 2017) provides a suitable framework for examining young adolescents’ musical motivation, development, and wellness. SDT proposes that health and well-being are achieved when an individual’s basic psychological needs of competency, relatedness, and autonomy are satisfied. The relationship between musical identities and well-being draws attention to the potential for music education to support young people flourishing in, through, and with music. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ways that young adolescents construct their identities in and through music class and how these identities support their psychological well-being.

Methods and Data Sources
Data were collected as part of a larger narrative inquiry (Barrett & Stauffer, 2009) investigating music values, uses, and identity construction in an Australian boys’ school (Author, 2024). The participants in the current narrative inquiry were six male volunteers, aged 14–15 years old, enrolled in an elective Year 9 general music class taught by the researcher. In one-on-one semi-structured interviews, participants were asked “what do you enjoy about music class?”, and were asked to draw a response and then explain their drawing (Author_Paper4, 2024). The students’ stories were co-constructed with the teacher-researcher using techniques of narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000). This study used an inductive narrative analysis and deductive analysis of narratives approach (Polkinghorne, 1995) such that the individual narratives are presented and then discussion centers on cross-narrative themes.

Results
The participants’ stories reveal an engaged community of music learners and how class music education satisfied their psychological needs of competency, relatedness, and autonomy, and supported their well-being. An brief excerpt from Leo illuminates the cross-narrative themes of belonging and competency.

Leo says he relates to others by “the music that they play or what instruments they play, or how they understand the music like I do. You have people that can do what you can do and you don’t seem like you’re alone.” Referring to his drawing (see Figure 1), Leo says this is “me reading music.” He says that he enjoys “imagining everything I read… It feels really nice to understand the piece.”

Scholarly Significance
This paper proposes that young adolescent class music is recalibrated to prioritize student musical flourishing, where music learning experiences empower students to lead joyful and meaningful lives in and through music.

Author

• Jason Goopy, Edith Cowan University