The influence of music education with rhyrhm, action and song teaching on the social development of the orphanage students between the age 7-11 (afyonkarahisar country sample)

This research aims to study the social development of the orphanage students between the ages 7-11 who have taken music education with using rhythm, actions and song teaching. The research was established with the permission taken from the Premiership Social Services and the General Management of Child Protection Association.The preparation stage of the education for the orphanage students between the ages 7-11 was based on the domestic and abroad courses that the educators attended and on reference scanning about the teaching of the ?Orff-Schulwerk? which is one of the modern approaches of music education.The basis of this research was orphanages that were under the control of Premiership Social Services and the exemplary one was Bolvadin Mehmet Akif Ersoy Orphanage in Afyonkarahisar, Bolvadin 40 students who were under protection between the ages 7-11 were randomly selected in the academic semester 2008-2009 and these students were divided in two as experiment and control groups.The statistical analysis of the gained data was conducted by using: SPSS program which was used in? Independent-Samples t Test?, ?Paired Sample t Test?, ?Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test? and ?Sign Test?. In order to reinforce the statistical data and to learn more about the students in the orphanage, meetings were conducted using the ?Structured Meeting Model?.Sub-tests as: ?Basic Skills, Skills to Start the Relationship, Work in Groups, Self-control and Accept the Consequences? were taken from ?The Measurement of Social Skill Evaluation? which was prepared and developed by Avcıoğlu. They were filled out by the caretakers of the 40 student before and after the music education. Moreover in order to learn the students? musical history ?Student Identification Form? was prepared and they were filled out by the caretakers in the pre-test stage.Following the pre-test stage music lessons, which were based on rhythm, actions and song teaching, were given to the experiment group (20 students), games with music were played on Sundays and additionally on Saturdays extra lessons named ?Taste Education? were given for three hours in three months. Music education and extra lessons were not given to the students of the control group.At the end of this three months education two performances were displayed, first one in Bolvadin and the other one in Afyonkarahisar and after the second performance final tests were completed for the experiment-control groups.Processing the collected data and the meetings it showed that the students who had taken music education based on rhythm, action and song teaching for three months had more progress in their social behaviors of ?using communication skills effectively, waiting for their turn, developing self confidence? than the students who had not taken this music education and different suggestions were given based on these results.Key Words: Music Education, Orff-Schulwerk, Orphan Child, Social Development.