Toward conceptualizations of musical creativities in secondary education: An integrative literature review between 1990 and 2020

Abstract

Creativity has been described as an indissociable component of music education, complex to conceptualize and often overgeneralized. This article provides an overview of existing research on musical creativities in secondary education between 1990 and 2020. A total of 76 articles published in peer-reviewed journals are reviewed according to PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. To present and discuss the results, several dimensions of creativity research have been clustered into five categories: product, person/group, creative process, context, and domain. The 22.37% of the articles focus on the creative process, 14.47% on the context, 13.16% on the person/group perspective, and 1.32% on the product. The 48.68% of the studies focus on the domain perspective, showing an emphasis on specific activities traditionally associated with musical creativity like composing or improvising. Music listening is not present, and various forms of musical creativities are underrepresented. Over these three decades, an increasing orientation on teaching and learning within a sociocultural framework can be observed. In addition, the pedagogical challenges concern an expanded vision of creativity, albeit based on a specific and precisely defined framework.