Listening to music can accompany many daily activities or take place as a stand-alone activity. Children, adolescents and adults listen to music every day in a variety of contexts, either involuntarily or voluntarily. In the school setting, students are rarely given the opportunity to listen to music outside of class. Listening to music in school is often used as an aid to achieve instructional objectives of a course or in the process of learning music. Many scientific studies have shown that listening to music can enhance an individual's cognitive functions, the most widely discussed being that of Raucher, Shaw, Levine and Ky (1993) which highlighted the "Mozart Effect". The 'Mozart Effect' initially involved the improvement of participants' spatial ability after listening to a Mozart sonata and went on to describe any beneficial effect that listening to music (mainly classical) can have on an individual's cognitive functions. The study by Raucher et al (1993) sparked a lot of research that tried to either replicate it, refute it or discover the mechanisms that might be causing it. Subsequent research has pointed to the emotional response that the musical stimulus elicits in the individual as the most important factor in the effect that listening to music seems to have on an individual's cognitive functions (Schellenberg et al, 2007). Research in the field has been extended to other cognitive and perceptual functions in addition to spatial ability (Carr & Rickard, 2016) and has been conducted in a variety of population samples regarding age and culture (Ivanov & Geake, 2003; Schellenberg & Hallam, 2006). In this presentation, a literature review of relevant studies in samples including children and adolescents of formal education will be presented. Through the findings that will be presented, our study aims to answer whether and under what conditions the possibility of triggering a 'Mozart effect' in the broader sense of a beneficial effect of music listening on students' cognitive functions is confirmed, which specific functions it may involve, and which features of the music are likely to mediate the desired effect. Based on the findings of the above literature review, suggestions for good practice regarding the use of music listening in the school setting for non-instructional purposes will also be presented. 

• Meaningful musical experiences
• Music psychology and identities
• Music and communities

Maria Tsaliki was born and raised in Thessaloniki where she completed her studies at the University of Macedonia in the Department of Music Science and Art, specializing in piano. Afterwards she completed her Master's Degree in Music Pedagogy at the same Department and since 2023 she holds a PhD in Music Pedagogy. She has published articles in Greek scientific and music education journals and has participated in international conferences on music education and general education. She works as a music educator in primary public schools in Thessaloniki and privately as a piano instructor. She collaborates with the Department of Music Science and Art of the University of Macedonia as a postdoctoral researcher.