The use of Orff-based music activities for educational and therapeutic purposes with disadvantaged group of Romani children

Abstract

"Romani people" are a disadvantaged group of people due to their socio-cultural and socio-economic conditions. This situation makes them poor and thus cannot afford education. As Romani people have the tendency to love music, it is considered that music activities may encourage their children who generally have negative attitudes towards school to attend school systematically. Therefore, this work aims to directly and indirectly  encourage the Romani children to attend school through music activities. For this purpose, a public primary school was used consisting entirely of Romani children. A first-year class was selected as a pilot group. Multicultural and multidisciplinary music activities based on Orff approach were carried out with the pilot group, for 2 h per week by the music teacher, who was also the participant observer. All activities were video-taped and transcribed for systematic analysis process. The results showed that Orff-based music activities carried out for educational and therapeutic purposes created a positive effect on the musical and non-musical development of Romani children. In addition, by using a variety of activities from different countries, the children’s socio-cultural awareness and understanding of multicultural differences were enhanced as well as their social interaction and communication skills. Key words: Romani people, disadvantaged children, Orff-based music activities, socio-cultural awareness.