‘Sharing My Voice’: A Young Person’s Story Of Inclusion And Belonging Through Shared Song

Abstract

This paper presents qualitative results from a single-participant case study in an educational setting. It explores issues related to belonging and inclusion in the group singing experiences of a young Ukrainian refugee in the United Kingdom. It employs an Indigenous research paradigm to contextualise the findings in the past and present cultural contexts of the participant. To answer the question, ‘How has membership of a youth choir impacted the participant’s sense of identity, belonging and inclusion?’, observation, interview and literature review data were analysed using a constructivist grounded theory approach. The data suggest that sharing in collaborative action, mediated through certain community influences impacted her sense of well-being, autonomy and personal development. Furthermore, it is theorised that the act of group singing in particular facilitated her journey from the periphery of the choir group to the centre of the communal life of the choir.