Music for Inclusion and Healing in Schools and Beyond

Abstract The chapters that make up this book recognise through examples from research, practice, and evaluation of quality with lived experiences that diverse contemporary popular musics can provide useful tools not just for entertainment and fun, but for learning, growth, and healing/wellness. Hip hop, techno, grime, drill, and suchlike are contemporary genres that have been stigmatised through association with the BAME community. At the same time, however, these musics are typically the listening diet of choice today in our inner cities. These contemporary musics of the inner city and their associated music-related activities (e.g., deejaying, beat making, mixtape making as well as dance, visual art, and more) are celebrated and embraced as extraordinarily powerful tools for building and maintaining academic, social, and emotional competencies. These musics are loved, and they can open up opportunities for creativities among those who often feel seriously marginalised. In turn, these musics (and activities associated with them) can provide opportunities to engage and/or support those at the social and educational margins. In other words, the musics at the heart of this book have faced exclusionary pressures, but they can also work for inclusion when utilised in educational/pedagogical or therapeutic practices. As a whole, the book seeks to account for the power and impact of a set of contemporary popular musics in educational, therapeutic, and community contexts, and to ask questions as to just where this power comes from, how we can measure its impact and where the future might lead.