Carla Aime, Dalila Bovet, Rana Esseily Laboratoire Ethologie Cognition Development - Paris Nanterre University, Nanterre, France
In the last two decades, a growing literature showed benefits of engagement with music on several aspects of social (e.g. Kirchner & Tomasello, 2010; Rabinovitch et al., 2013), academic (e.g. Hallam et al., 2010) and personal development in children (e.g. Welch et al., 2014). However, these studies mainly include instrumental learning and music education, with choral singing being poorly investigated especially in children. The few studies on the effects of choral singing in adults and adolescents show positive effects on self-esteem and feeling of social inclusion (Ashley, 2002; Dingle, 2013). Our aim here was to test the effect of choral singing in children on academic achievement, social interactions and wellbeing. This study was part of a music education program (three years of intensive choral singing practice at school) implemented in two schools located in deprived areas in Paris and its suburb by a public institution for music education and culture (“La Philharmonie de Paris”). In a longitudinal y, we evaluated 95 children from age 8 to 10 on three social interaction tasks (sharing, cooperation and helping), on school learning abilities using the BMT test, and on wellbeing using questionnaires. We compared the evolution of these children with those of a control group. We found beneficial effects of choral singing on sharing and cooperation with peers and also on repetition of difficult sentences in a grammatical task, but no transfers to other school competencies. Potential effects on wellbeing remain unclear because of a variability among school institutions.
