This is a report about the Dream Orchestra, a non-profit association based in Gothenburg, Sweden, that supports vulnerable children and young refugees by helping them learn music together.

As this report makes clear, this educational context is particularly demanding, especially with regard to social skills, pedagogical knowledge, emotion management and resilience.

We find this to be true for all social actors involved, including students, teachers, parents and caretakers, volunteers, directors, institutional partners and financers.

The report documents the results obtained from a month-long ethnographic study held on site, which was led by social scientists from the research project ‘YouSound − Music education as an inclusive tool for underage refugees in Europe’ (2022–2023).

We hope this report is inclusive, accessible and useful to all social actors interested in comprehensive art education programmes, from policy-makers to teachers and students.

“We don’t have to go to a foreign country to work for integration, it’s also very needed in Sweden. In some areas of Gothenburg, there are over 100 nationalities and 104 languages spoken.”

DO board member, 2022

Music education as an inclusive tool for underage refugees in Europe

The “YouSound” project explores the use of music as a tool for the social inclusion of underage refugees in Europe. It makes use of qualitative and arts-based research methods through fieldwork in music programs in Greece and Sweden, culminating in the production of relevant outputs for social sciences and policy making. In this way, the project aims to contribute concretely to the promotion of inclusive societies and institutions, in tandem with advancing the Sociology of Art. First reports about the two organizations that were subject for this research project; “El Sistema Greece” and Dream Orchestra, based in Gothenburg, Sweden, are now available to read:

Access: yousound.eu

Specific links to the reports: Dream Orchestra and El Sistema Greece

The 18-month Exploratory Project is funded by the Portuguese public agency FCT (EXPL/SOC-SOC/0504/2021), and is housed at the transdisciplinary research center INET-md with headquarters at NOVA FCSH.