The Workshop by ARTEMIS Diversity, Inclusion & Gender Equality (DIGE) Working Group (AEC) at the Conservatory of Music Alessandro Scarlatti, Palermo - October 2, 2023
As an active partner in the KA220 INCLUMUSIC project, the Conservatory of Music Alessandro Scarlatti successfully hosted the ARTEMIS Diversity, Inclusion & Gender Equality (DIGE) Working Group, on October 2, 2023. In the frame of the AEC - Empowering Artists as Makers in Society project (ARTEMIS, 2022-2025), co-funded by the European Union, this workshop aimed at sharing experiences, identifying good practices and collaboratively envisioning institutional changes in relation to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in Higher Music Education (HME).
The workshop gathered over 40 participants, including teachers, students and administrative staff from several HME institutions in Sicily in addition to the Conservatory of Music of Palermo: Conservatory of Music Vincenzo Bellini (Catania), Conservatory of Music Antonio Scontrino (Trapani), Conservatory of Music Arcangelo Corelli (Messina), Conservatory of Music Vincenzo Bellini (Caltanissetta), Conservatory of Music Arturo Toscanini (Ribera, AG). Moreover, the workshop was attended, in the frame of his Erasmus+ mobility, by a music history teacher from the Conservatorio Superior de Música Joaquín Rodrigo (Valencia) dealing with inclusion of female composers, who, as soon as back in Spain, published an article on the DIGE Working Group, disseminating it on social media.
One of the most impactful aspects addressed by the workshop has been the relevance of Special Education Needs in HME, underpinning how the working/study environment could change and what sort of action should take place in each institution in order to fulfill special needs.
Students and teachers, who participated at the workshop, found the importance of improving challenges in the institution’s environment. They evidenced the resistance in response to diversity and underpinned two elements in order to meet special needs: listening and flexibility.
The Conservatory Alessandro Scarlatti, in order to develop such good practices for inclusion has developed a specific regulations for inclusion that were updated last July 2023, activating specific services, through the support of specific technical and educational aids such as the support of special tutoring services, as well as compensatory and dispensatory measures for both study activities and examinations. Moreover, the support is provided by this regulation with a Peer Tutor or Specialized Tutor and through the implementation of specific psychological or music therapy support projects.
As stated in the regulation, the Conservatory of Music of Palermo aims at the educational success of the student with disabilities and the realization of quality inclusion through adequate and appropriate organizational and teaching strategies, with reference to the legislation on the right to study and the social integration of students with disabilities. Furthermore, the Conservatory pays much attention to start-ups that enable blind people to download Braille scores and study music, such as the telematics platform set up inside the Conservatory itself, or ODLA, a keyboard set up in Palermo for digital music writing and reading digital sheet music in clear text.
In addition to the participation at the Cooperation partnership project INCLUMUSIC, the Conservatory of Music Alessandro Scarlatti is strengthening and extending its Erasmus+ partnerships in the specific field of inclusion, as a primary objective of its internationalization strategy, to develop internationally shared actions and enhance the Conservatory’s own commitment to inclusion at several levels. The newly established Music Therapy Master immediately started a collaboration with the same Master program at LUCA School in Leuven (Belgium). Moreover, in the frame of the new KA171 Project “MMM Mediterranean/Sub-Saharan Music Movement”, the Conservatory has activated some important partnerships with institutions from South-Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan countries that are working intensively in the fields of Music Therapy and Art Therapy, such as the Institut Supérieur de l'Education Spécialisée de Manouba (Tunisia), the Alexandria University (Egypt) and the University of Lagos (Nigeria).