Enhancing emotional and social skills through music in Greek kindergartens: In-service and student teachers’ perspectives

This article explores the views of kindergarten in-service and student teachers in Greece regarding the potential impact of music, particularly in strengthening the emotional and social development of children. Despite the growing interest in integrating arts, particularly music, into education to enhance children’s emotional and social competence, it seems that although teachers recognize the benefits of music to their personal lives, they are rather reluctant to incorporate music into their everyday classroom practice to the extent one might anticipate. The study of their responses yields important insights, particularly with regard to existing prevalent preconceptions that often influence or define music education practices, revealing certain limitations of psychologically oriented thinking and leading to the identification of about certain gaps in music educational research. It remains unclear how developments in the field of psychology of music can be effectively integrated into music education research and subsequently applied in a more planned and purposeful manner in practice.