The effectiveness of integrating music and other subjects on students' development : the music education situation in Australia and Finland and is implications for Japan

The positive outcomes of learning music and the arts are many, including building children’s self-esteem, enhancing their academic achievement, training them in life skills and giving them a variety of means for self-expression. The benefits of using music as a form of play with young children, as well as teaching music and other arts to older children extend far beyond the reaches of the individual subjects as engagement in quality music an arts programs has been shown to support the cultivation of positive social behaviour through its ability to emotionally move the listener. Referencing the cases of Finland and Australia, this paper provides a framework for implementing arts integration activities so that teachers can effectively make sue of the minimal time currently available to music and arts education to create authentic, engaging learning experiences by integrating music and the arts in other subjects across the curriculum.