Challenging Voices: Music Making with Children Excluded from School

Children with challenging behaviour who get excluded from school often go on to have some of the worst life outcomes of any group in society. Often relocated into Pupil Referral Units or PRUs, few of them do well academically and when they leave school many get caught up in the criminal justice system or become homeless. Yet these young people can be very creative and frequently have a passion for music, although they often do not get the opportunity to play or get involved in music making. This book looks at these children, who they are and how they are treated by the education system. The book’s aim is to illustrate successful ways musicians work with these children, how they treat them with respect and enable them to grow as young musicians. Drawing on his decades of experience working with these young people, his PhD research and interviews with over forty educators and community musicians, the author shares a very different methodology to that used in mainstream music education, a methodology that values the child more than the curriculum and puts equal emphasis on musical, personal and social development.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Who gets excluded? – Theoretical underpinnings – The history of education with «maladjusted» children – Pupil referral units – What the children bring – The relationship between children and adults – Behaviour management – What music can do – Musical ideas and leadership – Energy, focus, flow and change – Intent – Developing reflection – Practioners – Summary and conclusion.

About the Author :
Phil Mullen is one of the world’s leading experts on musical inclusion. He is an Irish music educator and community musician based in England. Phil has worked for thirty-five years developing music with people who are socially excluded. He specializes in working with excluded children and young people at risk. Phil has run training workshops and seminars in twenty-seven countries across Europe, North and South America, Australia and Asia. Phil has been inclusion advisor to the UK’s national Sing Up programme and works with music organizations and schools around inclusion training and strategic development on inclusion. Phil has a PhD from Winchester University on music making with young people with challenging behaviour and has written a number of book chapters on musical inclusion.