Ukrainian children making music in an Irish school

By Ailbhe Kenny and Olha Lukianchenko | ISSUE 28

Moving to music. Photo by the authors

Across Ireland today, more than 18,000 Ukrainian children and young people are enrolled in school. This figure is unprecedented in the country's history and has been steadily increasing since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. As global levels of forced migration continue to rise, cultural and arts leaders, music educators, community musicians, teachers and community stakeholders are asking: how can schools and the arts support children uprooted from their homes?

Listening to and for the sounds and music children create in school can act as a means to listen to oneself, to others and to the world around us. Playing, recording, singing and listening to such sounds also offer a means to archive and document embodied experiences of migration and in particular connect people in auditory ways to the context they live within. After all, sound has cultural, geographic, and social significance in our lives. 

As part of the MUSPACE project (muspace.hypotheses.org), we explored these embodied, auditory and relational experiences of migration in a primary school in Limerick city. Our aim was to create a musical space where Ukrainian children seeking international protection could feel a sense of belonging, even if only temporarily. We wanted to explore how a discrete musical space for these children might create a (temporary) place to be when so much is destabilised in their lives. We also wanted to capture through recording sound and music-making activities how the children navigated the school context and their identity within it as forced migrants. 

The chosen school reflects Ireland's growing diversity; it is a co-educational Catholic public school with pupils representing almost 50 different countries, including 22 Ukrainian children across all age groups. We co-designed music workshops for two mixed-age groups: juniors (5–8 years) and seniors (9–11 years) with the sessions led by the Ukrainian researcher-facilitator. Essentially, the project utilised the power of music as a means of learning and adapting to a new culture through active participation in collective music-making. This involved an exploration of English-language songs, Irish dance music, folk instruments, and traditions, as much as it involved Ukrainian music, dance and song. As a result, there was a recognition of the transnational and intersectional identities that displaced children hold. This was demonstrated through the children's verbal interactions in the workshops and at an interview, where for instance they often mentioned relatives who stayed in Ukraine or their former classmates. Further confirmation of such transnational links between Ukrainian children and their homeland can be found in the reports of the Department of Education, where it is indicated that 85% were learning the Irish curriculum in person in Irish schools and at the same time learning the Ukrainian curriculum online.

Our research findings were significant and important: creative, collective music-making matters. The workshops offered a space where children could ‘be themselves’, feel confident, and express identity in ways not possible in their mainstream classrooms. Activities ranged from rhythmic games and singing to ensemble playing and improvisation. Children spoke of their enjoyment of small-group music-making where they could create something uniquely theirs. As Marina (10) put it, ‘I really like the music workshops, here I can make my own music.’ Tonya (11) added, ‘Here we can be ourselves, participate in everything individually.’ This distinction between music made as Ukrainians and music made in regular classes was striking. A distinctive feature of these musical activities was the emphasis on participation, fun and enjoyment, rather than developing children's performance or technical skills. Thus, the creative atmosphere of the workshops, the gentle support and the sense of trust built up between the children and specifically the Ukrainian facilitator helped to encourage children's initiative to compose/improvise on musical instruments, as well as create soundscapes.

Language barriers were, of course, a challenge. The workshops involved a mix of Ukrainian, Russian, and English, allowing children to communicate freely and express themselves in ways mainstream classrooms could not accommodate. Singing songs in differing languages for instance, became a powerful symbol of hybrid identity with patriotic Ukrainian songs, such as Ой, у лузі червона калина (Oh, in the Meadow is a Red Viburnum), indicating the children's acute sense of nationalism heightened by the ongoing conflict. 

Music-making also opened space for hope. Improvisation and creative collaboration allowed the children to (re)imagine positive futures, and many voiced a desire to return to a safe Ukraine. Hence, the research findings underscore music's capacity to create inclusive spaces for expression beyond linguistic constraint. It also demonstrates the ethical and pedagogical importance of collaboration between researchers (in this case including a displaced researcher), teachers and school communities. Crucially, as forced migration reshapes societies and schools worldwide, music can create conditions for different kinds of engagement in schools, which in turn contribute to a sense of belonging. In this way, music contributes to the slow and necessary work of rebuilding community in times of uncertainty.

Ailbhe Kenny

Dr Ailbhe Kenny is an Associate Professor at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, Ireland. Her latest book, Music Refuge: Living Asylum Through Music is published with Oxford University Press, https://global.oup.com/academic/product/music-refuge-9780197780138.

Olha Lukianchenko

Dr. Olha Lukianchenko is an Associate Professor of Pedagogy at Dragomanov Ukrainian State University. She was a postdoctoral research fellow on the Research Ireland project Music in the Intercultural School: Uncovering Spaces for Agency and Belonging (MUSPACE).