Caring for musically gifted children

Research Project Description

Despite decades of humanitarian discourses advocating for the ethical education of exceptional achievers, children gifted for music remain largely underprotected and exploited for the sake of sustaining the prestige of educational institutions and nations. In this project, Dr. López-Íñiguez explores how the politics of care in elite higher music institutions and certain educational “cults” could better support the education of gifted children. This transdisciplinary, intersectoral, cross-cultural, and multimethods research includes data from diverse cohorts of participants in multiple contexts in Finland and beyond. Systems Thinking will be used as an overarching approach to explore fundamental change in professional music education. Based at the Sibelius Academy, the project seeks to support children gifted for music internationally, so that they can live as agentic and healthy individuals while pursuing desirable educational outcomes in caring ecosystems.

Dissemination

Refereed publications

López-Íñiguez, G., & Westerlund, H. (in press). The politics of care in the education of children gifted for music: A systems view. In K. S. Hendricks (Ed.), Oxford handbook of care in music education. Oxford University Press.

López-Íñiguez, G., & McPherson, G. E. (forthcoming). Caring approaches to young, gifted music learners’ education: A systematic PRISMA review.

General audience publications

López-Íñiguez, G. (2022, November 20). The pro­fes­sion­al­iza­tion of gifted chil­dren in the per­form­ing in­dus­try: Who cares? Uniarts Helsinki’s Art Makes a Difference blog.

Keynotes, talks, lectures

López-Íñiguez, G. (2023, April 13). “Desafíos en la educación musical profesional de niños y niñas con altas capacidades” [Invited keynote] I Congreso Iberoamericano de Psicología de la Música y Cognición Musical, organised by the Argentinian Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (SACCoM), the Brazilian Society for Music Cognition (ABCM), and the Spanish Society for Music Psychology (AEPMIM). International online conference.

López-Íñiguez, G. (2023, January 19). “Insights into my 11- plus 5-years’ research journey: What it takes to tackle the musically gifted child paradigm” [Invited talk]. University of the Arts Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy Research Forum, Music Centre’s Agora (Finland).

López-Íñiguez, G. (2021, May 17). “The right to a childhood for musically gifted children: Academic acceleration in higher arts education” [Invited talk]. University of the Arts Helsinki’s CERADA and Open Campus online seminar (Finland).

Events

Pitching competition at Science Night LIVE! (2023, March 29). Finalist, pitch title: “Caring for Musically Gifted Children”. Event funded by Tieteen tiedotus and jointly organised by E2 Research, Haaga-Helia University of Applied Sciences, and Heureka. Heureka, Helsinki (Finland).

Research project’s kick-off seminar (2022, October 11). Keynote address by Prof. Gary McPherson, and a discussion panel with distinguished guests. Sonore, Helsinki Music Centre (Finland).

Principal Investigator

Guadalupe López-Íñiguez is a Spanish cellist, educator and interdisciplinary researcher. She is passionate about human (musical) learning and development and holds a PhD in Educational Psychology and a master’s degree in Classical Music Performance. She is Associate Professor of Music Education at the Sibelius Academy in Finland, and Honorary Senior Fellow at Melbourne University’s Conservatorium of Music. Her scholarly expertise in music research includes constructivist pedagogy, employability and careers, giftedness and talent, identity and lifelong learning, musicians’ wellbeing, performance optimisation, and theories of emotion and motivation.

Guadalupe is Co-Editor in Chief of ISME’s Revista Internacional de Educación Musical, Co-Chair of ISME’s Commission for the Education of the Professional Musician (CEPROM), and member of the European Association of Conservatoires’ (AEC) Artists as Makers in Society (ARTEMIS) project. She is co-editor of “Learning and Teaching in the Music Studio – A Student-Centred Approach” (Springer, 2022), and has published several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters with leading publishers. She also serves as an expert for academic journals, conferences, and funding bodies. Her research has been recognized with significant funding (over €1M as a PI) and awards.

As a musician, Guadalupe is specialised in historically informed practice and plays on baroque, classical, and modern cellos. Alba Records released her critically acclaimed albums with the complete cello works by Gabrielli and Scarlatti in 2018, and the complete cello works by Mendelssohn in 2019. She plays at times with the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra and has recorded for radio and television.

Blog

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  Blog article

  The professionalization of gifted children in the performing industry: Who cares?