Blaženka Bačlija Sušić
Blaženka Bačlija Sušić, PhD is an assistant professor and senior researcher for music education at the Faculty of Teacher Education (Department of Art), University of Zagreb. She graduated piano at the Academy of Music, University of Zagreb. After graduation, she studied chamber music at the Hochschule für Musik und Dartstellende Kunst in Graz. She received her PhD in music pedagogy at the Department for Music Pedagogy at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in 2012. Since 2013 she has been an external associate professor for the Psychology of Music at the Catholic University of Croatia.
As a music pedagogue and researcher, she is committed to the improvement of music education on regional, national, and international levels. Her research interest includes themes like children’s well-being, musical improvisation and different ways of fostering children’s musical creativity, music competencies of students and educators, music giftedness, and other pedagogical themes in the context of music education.
As National coordinator for the European Association for Music in Schools (EAS) for Croatia, she is highly experienced and interested in international, multicultural work environments creating new opportunities to network and connect with international colleagues working on enhancing music education. She is a member of the Society for the Promotion of the Original Croatian Music-Pedagogical Concept of Functional Music Pedagogy, the European Network for Music Educators and Researchers of Young Children (EuNET MERYC) and the World Organisation for Early Childhood Education (OMEP).
Currently, she is working with an international research group as the leader of the Croatian team for the Erasmus project Everyone Can Improvise – ECI.
From 2018-2020 she has been involved in the project Giftedness in the Artistic Field – analysis of the Situation among Primary School Pupils in Terms of Artistic and Musical Giftedness. The project was implemented as part of bilateral cooperation between Croatia and Slovenia. She also led several small-scale projects financed by the University of Zagreb: Assessment of the Child’s Emotional Well-being and Involvement in Artistic Activities in the Implementation of the Early and Childhood Education Curriculum (academic year 2020/2021); The Effect of Integrated Musical Activities on the Development of Musical Abilities and Well-being of Children during the pandemic (2021/2022); Integrated Preschool Curriculum – Constructivist Approach, Quality of Music Educational Practice and Educators needs in Croatia (2022/2023) while currently, she is leading the small-scale project titled Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in the Context of Music Education of Students’ Future Early Childhood Educators and Primary School Teachers (2023/2024).
She participated in numerous international scientific conferences held at the national and international levels and published more than forty scientific papers in various journals, proceedings and scientific monographs. In addition to membership of the Scientific Committee of different conferences, she is a member of the editorial board of journals: Croatian Journal of Education, Napredak, Research on Preschool and Primary Education, Tonovi and Educational Issues.