Intertwining Music, Nature, and Culture: Hua’er and Music Education in Forest Schools

• In Event: AERA Research in Progress Roundtable Session Four
  In Invited Roundtable: Research-in-Progress RT006 (Saturday)

Abstract

This study explores how Hua’er, a Chinese folk song tradition, can be integrated into Forest School education to foster cultural and ecological learning. Drawing on relational ontology and ecomusicology, the research examines how music mediates connections between humans, nature, and place. Using autoethnography and arts-based participatory research, it investigates Forest Schools in Denmark and the UK and participatory Hua’er workshops in China. Preliminary findings reveal that musical engagement encourages empathy, creativity, and more-than-human awareness, while Hua’er revitalises local ecological knowledge through children’s song-making. The study proposes a cross-cultural framework for culturally place-responsive education, bridging social constructivism and posthumanist perspectives, and offering practical pathways for sustainable, inclusive pedagogies across cultural and environmental contexts.

Author

• Zixuan Yang, University of Oxford