Project COPE is a virtual fieldwork endeavor that aims to consider music’s therapeutic role in the lives of school-aged children and families while confronting the challenges brought about by COVID-19.
Families are diligently taking measures to protect themselves and others in their communities by social distancing and sequestering at home. As the fight against the virus continues, proactive and stopgap measures such as online learning and working from home have become the new normal for many families. The virus has disrupted lives worldwide, not only in these regards, but also has as a mass trauma event that has and will continue to have tangible and morbid repercussions long-past any return to normalcy.
Musical engagement, in a variety of manifestations, is developmentally appropriate and typical for children and young families. We know them to be singing, dancing, playing instruments, and listening, and our interest is in the nature and extent of this musical involvement in these unprecedented times.
Through interviews and virtual participant-observation, and by tapping into the insights of family members in the home, our aim is in developing an understanding of children’s musical interests and involvement in listening habits, music as play, social interactivity, embodiment, and cultural and collective sensitivities. We are intent to know how music may be serving families as a source of support and stimulation, consolation and relief, and we hope to illuminate details of children’s engagement across a spectrum of music and musical activities amid the challenges brought on by the coronavirus. As the pandemic endures and even as things “return to normal,” there is a need to know how children and families are coping and how musical engagement plays a part."
As the pandemic endures and even as things “return to normal,” there is a need to know how children and families are coping and how musical engagement plays a part.
Key to activity of Project COPE is the research team: Clayton Dahm, PhD student in Music Education, Juliana Cantarelli Vita, PhD candidate in Music Education, and Jack Flesher, PhD student in Ethnomusicology.
Return to Music Education Pages