Music as a resource for agency and empowerment in identity construction

Abstract

Identity construction is the defining process of youth. Adolescents are renegotiating a multitude of fundamental self-perceptions from body image to social roles. At the same time, their self-regulatory skills are still developing, and society is placing increased demands on responsible behaviour, yet not always facilitating adolescents’ own abilities to act and voice. All this is challenging for adolescents’ sense of agency, the experience of being the actor in their lives, and holding ownership of their feelings, thoughts, and actions. This chapter discusses music as a resource for supporting agency during identity construction. In many ways, music is the space in which adolescents can be the actors of their life, give voice to their feelings and throughts, safely search for themselves, and feel ownership of their actions. Music can empower adolescents and facilitate their indentity construction by fostering their own capacity for self-reflection, self-regulation, self-expression, and participation. The chapter introduces the identity section of this book, discussing how music functions as an empowering playground for agency in healthy development, and also how music can restore agency when it has been compromised.