Yvonne Higgins is Assistant Professor of Music Education in the School of Arts Education and Movement in the DCU Institute of Education. Prior to taking on this role she has had extensive experience at primary level. Since 1996 she has made an ongoing contribution to primary teacher music education and continuous professional development.
She is a graduate of St. Patrick’s College (B.Ed. and M.Ed.) and of the Zoltan Kodály Institute of Music Pedagogy in Kecskemét, Hungary (Grad.Dip.). She has a keen interest in choral conducting and has founded and directed school, community, and college choirs.  In 2004 she was seconded to the Primary Curriculum Support Programme (PCSP) as a member of the Music and, later, the Arts Team facilitating the introduction of music in the revised Irish Primary Curriculum (1999) to Irish teachers. She was seconded to lecture in Music Education in Marino Institute of Education from 2009 to 2012.  

Her research investigates children’s engagement in musical thinking.  Her M.Ed. research investigated this through classroom composing.  Her current PhD research, which is supported by Music Generation,  builds on this research into children’s musical thinking in classroom composing and on her choral practice. It draws together her extensive understanding of language literacy to investigate the development of a communicative, meaning-making approach to children’s music reading in choral settings.