CREMA
Research group information
Contact information
Research group leader
- Professor of Music Education
Researchers
Research group description
The Community of Research in Education, Music, and the Arts (CREMA) is part of Eudaimonia Institute. Research focuses on music and art education practices, individuals and communities in a changing world. Research topics include for example musical development, singing, project learning, musical creativity, composition pedagogy, special education of music, and development and design of e-learning environments.
Professor of Music Education, Pirkko Paananen is the head of the research group.
EKOMUS 2026–2027: Musical Ecoliteracy of Children and Young People
The aim of the project is to investigate and develop children’s and young people’s ecological awareness and relationship with nature through music education. In the context of the ongoing ecological crisis and increasing human alienation from nature, this topic is particularly urgent to examine at this time. The project integrates humanistic music research, creative music education, and socially oriented sustainability education. The goal of ecocritical music education is to foster ecological awareness through music and to build musical eco-literacy (Paananen, 2023).
Music plays a particularly significant role in the development of eco-literacy: humans are composers, performers, and listeners of their sound environments and thus bear planetary responsibility. By employing sound walks and composition workshops, the project addresses the following research questions:
- What kinds of elements of ecological awareness and meaning-making emerge in primary school pupils’ experiences of sound environments?
- What kinds of meanings related to ecological awareness do children express in their collaborative compositions?
- What kinds of changes occur in children’s musical eco-literacy as a result of eco-composition workshops?
Within the project, primary school pupils develop various competencies of musical eco-literacy by familiarizing themselves with their environments through sound walks, engaging in embodied observation of nature, and digitally collecting sounds. The pupils collaboratively create eco-compositions that are oriented toward the current state of nature and/or imagine future sound environments. By sharing their eco-compositions with an audience, pupils contribute to their communities from the perspective of sustainable development.
The researchers collect and analyze visual and audio materials, as well as reflective materials produced by children and young people and their collaborative eco-compositions. In addition, quantitative data on the development of musical eco-literacy are collected and analyzed.
The project is funded by Kone Foundation.
Project webpage: https://koneensaatio.fi/apurahat-ja-residenssipaikat/lasten-ja-nuorten-…
Project leader: Pirkko Paananen
Researchers: Pirkko Paananen, Marja Ervasti and Tua Hakanpää