Abstract:

The authorities claim that music training helps children and young people gain insight and actualize themselves and it contributes to their self-expression, self-confidence and socialization process. As known, music education that children and adolescences get varies for several reasons, and particularly the aims, the ways, and the intensity of courses differ according to the school types. From this context, the students of the high schools of fine arts getting vocational musical training and the students of general high schools not getting the vocational training were investigated by means of a general personality inventory, and a research was conducted to examine whether or not music education supports the personality development of the high school students. In the study, 140 students attending the last grade of high schools of fine arts, 140 students attending last grade of general high schools with total amount of 280 were randomly selected. The students were administered a 168 item personality inventory to determine their characteristics of ‘social, personal and general adaptation’ levels. Following findings were obtained as a result of the survey: When the total scales “general adaptation”, “social adaptation” and “personal adaptation” levels, including the sub-scales of ‘family affairs, social affairs, social norms, anti-social tendencies’, ‘self-actualization, emotional decisiveness, neurotic tendencies and psychotic symptoms’, were examined, the scores of students who get vocational music training were found significantly higher than the students who do not get it. The results of the study show that music training supports the personality development of adolescences positively.

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