Gaining Cultural Awareness

Cultural Awareness is one of the competencies that students in the United States will learn about during their studies. This semester, students enrolled in the Principles & Practice of Music Therapy I course at the University of Louisville, KY had the opportunity

• to reflect on their own culture and those of others
• to demonstrate awareness of the influence of cultural aspects in the therapeutic process, and
• to reach out to the global music therapy community.

One of their assignments was to partner up and interview music therapists that are experts for a specific population that they previously studied. Students have been encouraged to find out about similarities and differences related to music therapy techniques, approaches, service delivery models, funding, and socioeconomic aspects. The following four documents summarize the top common similarities and differences the students discovered between music therapy in the United States and Germany (by Elayne Parrish and Anne Parsons), Argentina (by Audrey Manis and Molllie Stephens), Norway (by Kelsey Norris and Emily Lobeck), and Bahrain (by Amelia Ehmling and Bailey Carter). Please click on the images to download the documents.We would like to thank the interviewees Markus Rummel (Germany), Ralf Niedenthal (Argentina), Dr. Simon Gilberton (Norway), and Aksana Kavaliova (Bahrain) for making time and contributing to gaining cultural awareness.Petra Kern, Ph.D., MT-DMtG, MT-BC, MTA[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="yes" overflow="visible"][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_4" last="no"]

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