by Megan Alexander

Created on: December 01, 2006   Last Updated: May 02, 2007

It is commonly said that studying music helps students build self-esteem and develop understandings of themselves. It makes sense that music education would have these influences because it offers students a unique opportunity for expression of feelings and emotions and an opportunity to work with others in a joint effort of creation. Creating something gives human beings a feeling of accomplishment, which helps them build self-esteem and feel good about themselves.

When people feel good about themselves and feel they are successful, it is said that they have high self-esteem and positive self-concepts. Self-concept has to do with the way individuals perceive and assess themselves. In Jolanta Kalandyk's book, Music and Self-Esteem of Young Children, she explains:
"The self-concept is conceptualized by psychologists as a "hypothetical" construct, not directly observable by researchers. The self-concept, in both adults and children, can be defined as totality of attitudes, judgments, and values relating to the individual's behaviour, abilities and qualities. It embraces the awareness of these variables and their evaluation. Other terms given to self-concept are: self-identity, self-image, perceived self, self-perception, cognitive self and self-structure"
If a person has a positive overall (general or global) self-concept, then that person feels good about himself or herself and has high self-esteem. If a person has a positive music self-concept, then that person is happy with his or her level of ability as a musician. Some researchers make a clear distinction between self-concept and self-esteem, while others use the two terms interchangeably. Kalandyk suggests that self-esteem is the evaluative part of self-concept, and that if one is said to have high or positive self-concept then this means the self-esteem aspect of his or her self-concept is high. However, in this paper, I will use self-esteem to refer to a students general feelings of confidents and self-worth (which is certainly an aspect of self-concept), and self-concept will also be described as an evaluative construct dependant on students perceptions of themselves, so that students can have positive to negative self-concepts. Self-concept and self-esteem are important forces in an individual's life. Self-esteem is one of the needs in Maslow's famous hierarchy of human needs: 1) Physical, 2) Safety, 3) Love, 4) Self-esteem, and 5) Self-actualization. Rosenberg states:
"Few activities engage our lives

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