Music and Participation: Child-focused and arts-based research to meet European challenges for migrant minors

This doctoral research project will investigate how minor migrants’ experience arts-based activities, and use such insights to inform the fields of music therapy and practices within child welfare/refugee work.

Over the past two decades, there has been a major increase in research into the effects of the arts on health and well-being, alongside developments in practice and policy activities in different countries across the WHO European Region and further afield. Recent knowledge and research developments indicates that arts-based activities such as music, dance and visual arts can promote the mental health, welfare and human rights of migrant minors.

Children’s experiences of health-related arts practices are under-researched, however, and in this project we will focus upon the experiences and perspectives of minor migrants. This will enrich our understanding of these practices, and it will be in line with the UNCRC (1989), which supports the view that children and adolescents are significant contributors of meaning in the society in which they live. We will focus specifically on the themes provision, protection and participation in order to highlight what we think is the most relevant discussion in regard to music therapy and minor migrants.