Song dedication as creative gift practice: Toward a framework for dedication education

• Song dedication reimagined as a tool to embed creativity in class. • Reframing classroom song dedication as gift-economy in education. • Dedication Triangle (Self-Gift-Recipient) explains shared-meaning creation. • Three dedication types mapped: Egocentric, Altruistic, Dialogic. • Practice boosts imagination, egalitarian exchange, and SEL outcomes. Humanistic education celebrates empathy and creativity, yet it seldom provides learners with concrete practices for living those values. In this study we reframe dedication from a marginal cultural courtesy into a method for embedding creativity and mutual care. We report on two 30-hour professional development courses in which 33 teachers learned to dedicate songs and to organize song-dedication activities with their own classes, practicing the routine during the training. Using dedication as a gift-giving exercise, we traced its cognitive, creative, social and cultural dimensions and mapped three dedication types: egocentric, altruistic, and dialogic. The Dedication Triangle (Self–Gift–Recipient) shows how constrained creativity weaves these vertices into shared meaning. We argue that dedication operates as a triple-function pedagogical device that simultaneously mobilizes imaginative thought, enacts egalitarian gift exchange and meets social emotional goals. The study therefore offers an actionable model for fostering empathy, creativity and relationship skills through music-mediated dialogue.