Research: Joining a choir ‘helps children make good moral choices’

Research: Joining a choir ‘helps children make good moral choices’

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norman lebrecht

March 20, 2015

A survey of 10,000 British schoolchildren and 250 teachers finds that those who join a musical ensemble are more likely to make good moral choices in their daily lives. Playing sport, on the other hand, makes no difference.

Those who were members of choirs or took part in other musical activities outside school were 17 per cent more likely to choose the more moral options than those who did not. Similarly those involved in drama groups outside school scored 14 per cent better on average….By contrast those involved in sports clubs or teams scored marginally worse than those who did not.

This is, of course, exactly what we’d like to believe.

The caveat is that the research was conducted by the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues at Birmingham University. How objective is that? Report here.

 

choir

Comments

  • Neil van der Linden says:

    Choral makes moral.

  • Barbara Schroder says:

    I haven’t read the whole article, so don’t know how the research was conducted, but – we do know that “Correlation does not imply causation.” In other words, these findings could have to do with some underlying personal quality that leads to both greater moral choices and choral participation. They do not demonstrate that one leads to the other.

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