<p>I have been using qualitative interviews to explore music's influence in school from a learning perspective, community perspective and identity-building perspective. I have visited two classes at two different schools to do these interviews with ten informants, both students and teachers. My interview questions were almost the same for both students and teachers, but differed in wording. My research is based on the informants’ answers and relevant sources such as literary books, curricula and the Internet.</p><p>After fieldwork was completed, I transcribed the interviews to further analyze them according to relevant theories, such as Bergman (2009) and Antal Lundström (1996). I am satisfied with the results of the research and I am glad that the sources I have found verify my own theories about music's understated value in schools and that music is really a necessary tool to help learning, community and identity creation. Regrettably I have not found any theories that take an opposite stance to my views.</p><p>Through my research I have found that music can benefit most students, not all because everyone has different needs - but many, in their learning process. Music, for example, helps with a new means of expression for students. I have also found that music increases the cohesion and creates community in groups where the participants reveals new sides to each other - something that creates a strong and secure group. The music gives students the opportunity to try different roles - it strengthens the students' personalities and helps them in their identity formation.</p>

I have been using qualitative interviews to explore music's influence in school from a learning perspective, community perspective and identity-building perspective. I have visited two classes at two different schools to do these interviews with ten informants, both students and teachers. My interview questions were almost the same for both students and teachers, but differed in wording. My research is based on the informants’ answers and relevant sources such as literary books, curricula and the Internet. After fieldwork was completed, I transcribed the interviews to further analyze them according to relevant theories, such as Bergman (2009) and Antal Lundström (1996). I am satisfied with the results of the research and I am glad that the sources I have found verify my own theories about music's understated value in schools and that music is really a necessary tool to help learning, community and identity creation. Regrettably I have not found any theories that take an opposite stance to my views. Through my research I have found that music can benefit most students, not all because everyone has different needs - but many, in their learning process. Music, for example, helps with a new means of expression for students. I have also found that music increases the cohesion and creates community in groups where the participants reveals new sides to each other - something that creates a strong and secure group. The music gives students the opportunity to try different roles - it strengthens the students' personalities and helps them in their identity formation.

This thesis contends that the image of fire is a multivalent and theologically valuable image for application in British Christian communities. My research offers an original contribution by contextualising the image of fire for Christian practice in Britain, and combining critical observation of several contemporary fire rites with theological analysis. In addition, I conduct original case studies of three Scottish fire rituals: the Stonehaven Fireball Ceremony, the Beltane Fire Festival, and Up-Helly-Aa in Lerwick, Shetland. The potential contribution of fire imagery to Christian practice has been overlooked by modern theological scholarship, social anthropologists, and Christian practitioners. Since the multivalence of the image has not been fully recognised, fire imagery has often been reduced to a binary of ‘positive' and ‘negative' associations. Through my study of non-faith fire rituals and existing Christian fire practices, I explore the interplay between multivalence, multiplicity, and liminality in fire imagery. I demonstrate that deeper theological engagement with the image of fire can enhance participation, transformation, and reflection in transitional ritual experience. I argue that engaging with the multivalence of the image of fire could allow faith communities to move beyond dominant interpretive frameworks and apply the image within their own specific context. First, I orientate the discussion by examining the multivalence of biblical fire imagery and establishing the character of fire within the British social imagination. Second, I use critical observation of community fire practices in non-faith contexts to build a new contextual framework for the analysis of fire imagery. Finally, I apply my findings to a contextual analysis of existing Christian fire practices in Britain. Throughout, I argue that sensory and imaginative interaction with the image of fire provides a way to communicate and interact with theological ideas; experience personal and communal change; and mediate experience of the sacred.