Name
1597 - Integrating SEL into Teaching Musical Wicked: Exploring Self- and Social Awareness of Seven Graders
Date & Time
Monday, July 27, 2026, 10:00 AM - 10:30 AM
Description
(UNESCO) initiated Social Emotional Learning (SEL) and progressively promoted it globally. To enhance students’ mental health and resilience, Taiwan officially embarked on SEL in 2025. During career and life education courses, Lai (2025) observed that many students were ambiguous about the values they genuinely cared about and inclined to follow expectations from parents or society. Likewise, Chan (2025) proposed that students often experience anxiety towards social expectations and yield to peer pressure, highlighting the necessity of cultivating self- and social awareness in teenagers. Although Lin (2018) mentioned that learning music may influence social-emotional development positively, further evidence was needed to verify the transfer effect of music education on SEL outcomes. This case study aims to integrate SEL into music education, focusing on thirty seventh-graders from Taipei City. The program lasted five lessons, each of which was forty-five minutes long. This program focuses on the awareness of the interdependent relationship between self and society among students. Before the program, pre-program worksheets designed by researchers were completed by students to evaluate their self-awareness. During each lesson, teachers guided students to listen to a song from the Broadway musical “Wicked”, and students were going to watch the musical play. Afterwards, students were required to observe the interactions between Elphaba and Glinda from the musical. Through the challenges of prejudice, personal identity and friendships between these two characters. Teachers guided students to perceive self-positioning and social cognition. The activity above initiated students to reflect on who they aspired to become, and what the current society expects, and ventured into seeking their self-identity. By the end of the program, students were required to complete a post-program evaluation designed by researchers to record their learning experience. Researchers then analysed the pre-program worksheets and post-program evaluations from students to study the possibilities and effectiveness of the program above. The purposes of this study are to foster in-depth self-awareness and self-reflection in students while enjoying musicals and to enhance the mental connection between individuals and society. Based on the results, many suggestions will be discussed: 1) to plan to instruct musical concepts, and also cultivate SEL among students in school music lessons; 2) to guide students to perceive the core ideas through different musical elements while appreciating musicals; 3) to nurture firmer self-awareness in students while observing individuals and the society, leading students to embrace diversity with empathy and mutual respect.
Location Name
210A - Poster Gallery
Session Type
Poster Presentation
Presenter(s)
Pei Chien Lin, Chia Ling Liu
Poster Board
49