Name
Musical Education in Vulnerable Communities: A Social Transformation Experience in Latin America
Date & Time
Wednesday, July 29, 2026, 5:20 PM - 5:35 PM
Description
This experience report addresses music education activities carried out in a high-risk community in Latin America through partnerships with industry development agencies and students aged six to twelve. It concerns an educational musical practice implemented within the CEE(Centro de esportes e Educação paraná) Project, in the cities of Araucária and Campo Largo, lasting ten months, located in areas of high risk of violence and reflecting on its turning points and improvements derived from the music and art classes practiced there. On the official website of the institution sponsoring these activities, the initiative—called “work that delivers results”—describes these actions as an incentive for children to “experience new realities and explore a world beyond their community” (CEE project, 2025), seeking to overcome everyday social vulnerability.The activities reported here took place during the opposite shift of the children’s regular school schedule. Studies conducted in contexts similar to that of this report demonstrate the effectiveness of musical activities as tools for social transformation in high-risk areas (Kleber, 2006; Rodrigues, 2024; Bozzetto, 2024; Maziero, 2024). The educational content—including songs, musical games, rhythmic body percussion, and the creative reuse of recycled materials—was contextualized within the thematic axes of Sustainability and the Environment. Activities involving drumming and the constant discovery of new sounds from seemingly disposable materials generated great enthusiasm among the students.This report also highlights life memories and collected testimonies showing how musical actions, in vulnerable social contexts, became instruments for improving family life. “This child is my best percussionist!”—a statement made by the music educator to a father accustomed to being summoned to the school due to his son’s behavioral issues—transformed not only that father’s perception but also the life of the child, who had often been labeled violent or aggressive. This episode consolidated music education as a social agent of change. The sound of a drum, combined with exploratory sound awareness and the discovery of previously unexplored spaces of resonance, became an active force transformed into collective musical practice, resulting in significant changes in the life of that community. The supervised musical encounters, encouraging the search for new experiences and the individual discovery of each child’s potential, triggered productive cycles of relationships. Thus, these music-pedagogical experiences reveal that the musical practice within this project contributes substantially to both the musical and human development of its participants.
Location Name
514A
Full Address
Palais des Congres - Montréal Convention Centre
1001, Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle
Montreal QC H2Z 1H2
Canada
Session Type
Short Paper Presentation
Presenting Author(s)
Janice Possamai Fiedler