Singing, health and well-being in school – a societal matter.

There remains a lack of research examining how song activities integrated within the school day can support children’s cognitive and language development, contribute to improved learning environments, and strengthen social bonds. In this presentation, we will describe our ongoing randomized control study, Sånghälsa i Skolan – en samhällilig angelägenhet, which seeks to measure the effects of integrated singing activities on lower school children’s cognitive, language and social development, well-being and classroom environment. It is unique in terms of the combined broad multidisciplinary backgrounds of the research team and reference group, brings a wide range of professional competences and theoretical perspectives from diverse fields: speech therapy, music and health, music education, social medicine, sound and music computing and music psychology. The central aim is to examine the effect of a model for research-based, developmentally appropriate singing instruction integrated into the school day on primary school children’s sense of well-being and learning environment, as well as measurement of associations between singing and cognitive, language and social competences. During a five-week period, students (N=? ) participate in a daily 15-minute singing activity in their homeroom classroom. Two out of three randomly selected schools will be followed through an evidence based, structured intervention during one term, with a third school serving as a control. In this presentation, study methods and preliminary results from a pilot study conducted in spring 2022 will be discussed, as well as methods used for creating the 15-minute daily singing activities together with participating music teachers. The study’s second focus is to promote the classroom soundscape. Based on the study’s results a robotic measurement device for the monitoring of the sound environment before and after singing activities will be developed and implemented, offering a feedback function for study participants aimed at promoting good learning environments. This pilot project is as a potential study contributing to measures and methods for optimizing classroom soundscapes. Our overarching ambition with the intended project is to build a sustainable research platform for singing, health and well-being in schools and serve for a wider national initiative in Sweden.