The dominance of musical practices and music teaching practices that value the Western, European, Classical, white and male musical productions can overshadow other types of cultural manifestations, which can affect both teachers' and students' engagement in music making. This paper examines the ways in which diverse forms of 'musicking' (Small, 1998) manifest in two community music contexts in Ireland. Drawing from Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire’s (1970/2005) notions of dialogue, humility and problem-posing humanising education, this research project explores how musical practices, repertoire choices and pedagogical approaches reflect issues of social engagement, artistic citizenship and belonging to each musical and cultural context. Using an ethnographic multiple case study approach, the paper will share findings from interviews with teachers and observations of their music-making practices in the two community contexts. Freire's (1967/1994; 1970) stages of consciousness are employed to analyse the different types of social engagement through musicking, ranging from a semi-intransitive state, passing through a naïve transitive state to reach critical consciousness, or conscientization. In a semi-intransitive consciousness, people fail "to perceive many of reality's challenges, or [perceive] them in a distorted way" (Freire, 1970, p. 461). Distortion of reality continues in the following stage, but there is more openness to dialogue and to engage with others. However, this can lead to sectarian or fanaticism behaviours (Morrow; Torres, 2002, p. 97). Critical consciousness is only achieved through praxis, when people "engage in authentic transformation of reality in order, by humanizing that reality, to humanize [themselves]"(Freire, 1970/2005, p. 183). In synthesising our findings, we argue that his third stage of critical consciousness corresponds most closely to actions of social engagement through music (teaching) as artistic citizenship. In the present and growing commodification of educational, human, and ethical values, the development of critical consciousness can build bridges for more inclusive and diverse artistic practices, perhaps transforming and humanising the reality of some music education contexts and of their participants.