A sample music education application on children working on the street: A Diyarbakir case study

As the city develops and enlarges, it results in changes in the socio-economic structure of the society and complicates the social life. As a result, the number of children working in the street increases. It is observed that the children who have to work on street cannot sufficiently benefit from schooling services, have high rates of dropouts, and lack socialization opportunities. Working on the street causes chaos in the lives of the children who have to do so. This study aims to determine the impact of music education on the lives of children who work on the street. Both positive and negative impacts are taken into consideration in the analysis. When we look at the results of the study, the application of music education implemented in the study resulted in an increase in the school attendance rates. Also, the students who attended the music education program in this study have moved away from the negative feelings and life experiences they had due to the relieving effects of music and rhythm, which is the foundation of music. Moreover, a result of the encouragement of the collaborative and healthy group work, an important degree of positiveness about future was observed among the children in the study. The data collection was conducted with the permission of the Department of Education and Publication under the Ministry of Family and Social Politics. The data was collected in two phases. First, the researcher developed a 30-question survey with five-likert scale questions. The survey was developed to test music attitudes of children involved in the study and was conducted face to face with 150 children who were registered in the system of 75. Yıl ÇOGEM. In the second phase of the study, another survey was developed to measure behavioral changes among the children. The survey included 40 five-likert scale questions. Pretest and posttests were conducted on 20 children who were willing to participate. The data was analyzed by using one-way Anova and Wilcoxon. SPSS 20.0 was used for the necessary analyses. The target population of the study is children aging 9-17 and working in the street while the sample is children who are registered in the database of the 75. Yıl ÇOGEM under the Directorate of Family and Social Politics in Diyarbakir. The study shows that music, the discipline and social networks created by music help children working on the street to develop positive life perspectives and interactions, to have increased rates of school attendance, to construct better views about school, teachers, success and education. Also, the music education helps the children to develop better esthetic sensitivities about peace and nature. At the end of the study, some recommendations have been made. Key words: Music, Music Education and Children who work on the street