Early childhood music making in educational settings: A comprehensive analysis of peer-reviewed research, 2000–17

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Salvador
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Research Articles ◽  
Educational Settings ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Education Profession

In this article, I present a comprehensive analysis of peer-reviewed research articles published in English between 2000 and 2017 regarding active music making in early childhood (EC) educational settings. My specific research questions were: who was making music? Who else was present? What did the children and other persons do? In what kinds of educational settings did the music making take place? How did the researchers frame and design their studies, and how did they collect data? What did the researcher(s) seek to understand? What did the researchers find? The results of this review challenge the EC music education profession to support every child’s right to a musical childhood by telling the whole story, communicating across places and communities of practice and understanding teaching and learning as contextual, varied and nuanced.

Assessing Music in Early Childhood

2019 ◽  
pp. 444-476
Author(s):  
Maria Runfola
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Student Assessment ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Children's Music ◽  
National Network ◽  
Music Assessment ◽  
Early Childhood Music ◽  
Utilitarian Value

In this chapter, pros and cons of assessing young children’s music skills and content knowledge are explored. An integrative literature review is included as well as a thematic review lending support to core themes. Several reasons were identified as to the importance of promoting student assessment as children participate in early childhood music. Use of music assessments in the classroom and for research should consider practices consistent with musical age as well as chronological age. Increased recognition of the importance of music in total development of the child supports need for effective early childhood assessment systems especially by the music education research community as they continue to gather evidence regarding the utilitarian value of music in early childhood. Researchers need to be aware of environmental factors that may impact early music learning and cognizant of current best practices in music education for early childhood. Researcher-developed criterion measures often are not investigated for quality characteristics, and thus rigorous guidelines for such criterion measures are needed. It appears there are no definitive policy or ethics statements regarding early childhood music assessment but both should be considered vital priorities for the profession. Most likely only those scholars with profound interest in assessment and teachers with deep understanding of the role of assessment in teaching and learning will volunteer to respond. Everything developed in such a national network will be useful, providing we start with clearly defined, intended outcomes and then develop assessments to document student attainment of those musical outcomes.

Could There Be Deleuzian Assessment in Music Education?

2019 ◽  
pp. 121-136
Author(s):  
Lauren Kapalka Richerme
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Music Educators ◽  
Assessment Practices ◽  
Continuous Assessment ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Musical Practices ◽  
Contemporary Education

Authors of contemporary education and arts education policies tend to emphasize the adoption of formal, summative assessment practices. Poststructuralist philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s emphasis on ongoing differing and imaginative possibilities may at first glance appear incompatible with these overarching, codified assessments. While Deleuze criticizes the increasing use of ongoing assessments as a form of control, he posits a more nuanced explanation of measurement. This philosophical inquiry examines four measurement-related themes from Deleuze’s writings and explores how they might inform concepts and practices of assessment in various music teaching and learning contexts. The first theme suggests that each group of connective relations, what Deleuze terms a “plane of immanence,” demands its own forms of measurement. Second, Deleuze emphasizes varieties of measurement. Third, those with power, what Deleuze terms the “majority,” always set the standard for measurement. Fourth, Deleuze derides continuous assessment. His writings suggest that music educators might consider that assessments created for one musical practice or style should not transcend their own “plane of immanence,” that a variety of nonstandardized assessments is desirable, that the effect of measurement on “minoritarian” musical practices must be examined carefully, and that it is essential to ponder the potentials of unmeasured music making.

Feminist Cyber-Artivism, Musicing, and Music Teaching and Learning

2020 ◽  
pp. 291-312
Author(s):  
Marissa Silverman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Philosophical Investigation ◽  
Music Teaching ◽  
Music Making ◽  
The Voice

This chapter asks an important, yet seemingly illusive, question: In what ways does the internet provide (or not) activist—or, for present purposes “artivist”—opportunities and engagements for musicing, music sharing, and music teaching and learning? According to Asante (2008), an “artivist (artist + activist) uses her artistic talents to fight and struggle against injustice and oppression—by any medium necessary. The artivist merges commitment to freedom and justice with the pen, the lens, the brush, the voice, the body, and the imagination. The artivist knows that to make an observation is to have an obligation” (p. 6). Given this view, can (and should) social media be a means to achieve artivism through online musicing and music sharing, and, therefore, music teaching and learning? Taking a feminist perspective, this chapter interrogates the nature of cyber musical artivism as a potential means to a necessary end: positive transformation. In what ways can social media be a conduit (or hindrance) for cyber musical artivism? What might musicing and music sharing gain (or lose) from engaging with online artivist practices? In addition to a philosophical investigation, this chapter will examine select case studies of online artivist music making and music sharing communities with the above concerns in mind, specifically as they relate to music education.

scholarly journals Jammin’ the Blues: Experiencing the “Good Life”

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth A. Debrot
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Good Life ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Musical Growth ◽  
Conceptual Foundations

The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics, attitudes, and perceptions of older musicians who participated regularly in a local blues jam. Six core dimensions of eudaimonic well-being and their conceptual foundations provided a framework for examining the way that music-making contributes to subjective well-being during the lifespan of an individual. The following research questions guided this investigation: (1) In what ways do biographical factors and engagement with music influence the lives of older adult blues/rock musicians who participate in a local blues jam? (2) What implications for subjective well-being with regard to music learning might be used to inform music education practices? Interviews and observations over a 2-month period provided data for understanding how lived experiences impacted personal well-being, and musical growth and development over time. Findings suggested that eudaimonic well-being is the result of active engagement in human activities that are goal-directed and purposeful, and a good life involves the self-realization of individual dispositions and talents over a lifetime. Implications for music education include individualized pedagogical approaches that encourage learners to discover a sense of well-being in and through music.

Nonregulated Assessment in Music Education

2019 ◽  
pp. 494-511
Author(s):  
Nasim Niknafs
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Music Teaching ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Proactive Approach ◽  
Self Organized ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Local Activism ◽  
Do It Yourself

Without access to official state-sanctioned, public music education, Iranian youth, specifically rock and alternative musicians, follow a self-organized and anarchistic path of music making. Expertly negotiating between the act of music making and the unpredictable situations they face daily, they have become creative in finding new ways to propagate their music and learn the rules of their profession. Meanings attached to assessment in these circumstances become redefined and overshadow the quality of music being created. Assessment becomes a local activism that countervails the top-down, summative model. This chapter provides some characteristics of assessment in music teaching and learning in urban Iran that follow Nilsson and Folkestad’s (2005) ecocultural perspective, consisting of four elements: (a) Gibson’s (1979) concept of affordances, (b) orality, (c) theories of play, and (d) theories of chance. Consequently, assessment in urban Iranian music education can be categorized as follows: (1) do-it-yourself (DIY) and do-it-with-others (DIWO), (2) interactive and decentralized, (3) local anarchism, and (4) lifestyle. This chapter concludes that the field of music education should take a “slightly outside perspective” (Lundström, 2012, p. 652) and proactive approach toward assessment, rather than the reactionary approach to music teaching and learning in which assessment becomes an end goal rather than an approach embodied within learning.

Reflective Practice in Music

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Reflective Practice ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Community Schools ◽  
Music Listening ◽  
Music Teaching ◽  
Music Practice ◽  
Perceived Environment ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Confucian Philosophy

This chapter proposes that music-making is a reflective practice and critically examines the issues of reflective practice in music listening, performing, and creating in P-12 and community schools. The author illustrates the framework of reflective practice embedded in music practice followed by proposing how music teaching and learning can be shared reflectively. Next, as a trait of this book, the author also adds an Asian perspective to understand reflective practice in music teaching and learning with a comparative and international topic in music education. Confucian philosophy of learning and Suzuki's philosophy that every child reflectively learns from the perceived environment.

An investigation of singing, health and well-being as a group process

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liz Mellor
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
Group Process ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Personal Stories ◽  
Creativity Research ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Health And Well Being

The aim of this paper is to explore perceptions of singing as a group process deriving from two research studies: (i) Study 1: CETL (Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning): C4C (Collaboration for Creativity) Research Project called Singing, Health and Well-being and (ii) Study 2: iSING. The studies consider singing in relation to health and well-being, personal ‘stories’ of singing which acknowledge the self in the process of research, and the effective use of presence in training using a lens developed from Gestalt psychotherapy. The research questions are: (a) What is the relationship between singing, health and well-being in group process? (b) How might this be researched? (c) What are the implications for pedagogic practice in music education?

Songs From the Car Seat

2014 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Huisman Koops
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Children's Music ◽  
Early Childhood Music ◽  
Car Seat ◽  
Sibling Interaction ◽  
Music Making ◽  
The Family ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Research Questions

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to investigate the musical “place” of the family vehicle by describing the music making of nine young children, ages 10 months to 4.5 years, that occurred in vehicles over the course of 9 weeks during which the children were enrolled in a researcher-led early childhood music course. Research questions examined the qualities of children’s music making in the car, optimal activities, and comparison of in-car and at-home music spaces. Data included parent journals on music activities that occurred in a vehicle, parent-filmed videos of children’s music-making activities both in and out of vehicles, videos of early childhood music classes, researcher field notes of music classes, and exit interviews with parents regarding their perceptions of music-making in the vehicles. The children sang, moved, listened to music, composed, and improvised while in the car, with activities mostly similar to those that occurred inside of the home. The family vehicle provided several advantageous characteristics as compared with the home, including reduced distractions; proximity to siblings, leading to increased sibling interaction at times; and opportunity for parent and child reflection.

The influences of teacher aspirations and practices for children’s inclusive music education: The case of Muziki Changa

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Achieng’ Andang’o
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Communities Of Practice ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Informal Education ◽  
Social Inclusion ◽  
Education Programme ◽  
Sociocultural Learning Theory ◽  
Sociocultural Learning ◽  
Learning Practices

This article explores the concept of inclusion within a music education programme called Muziki Changa based in Kenya. Through the lenses of Vygotsky’s sociocultural learning theory and Wenger’s communities of practice, the article explores the aspirations and practices of one of the founders and two teachers at Muziki Changa, an informal music education programme, and their impact on children’s inclusive music education. Findings indicate that teachers’ informal learning practices within communities of practice inspire them to pursue children’s social inclusion in music education and to utilize inclusive pedagogies in teaching. The study concludes that early childhood music education through informal education initiatives is contributing significantly to increase opportunities for children’s inclusive music education in Kenya.

Music in the Home

2014 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel A. Mehr
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Family Income ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Frequency Data ◽  
High Frequencies ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Widespread Belief ◽  
Music Activities

This study had three goals: (1) to investigate the potential connection between music experiences in early childhood and later music making as a parent, (2) to report the frequency of music making in a sample of American families with young children along with parents’ opinions on possible benefits of music classes, and (3) to compare frequency data to two previous studies. Parents of 4-year-old children were surveyed on the frequency of music activities in the home, their early arts experiences, and a variety of topics concerning arts education. An intergenerational link was found: The frequency of parental song in childhood significantly predicted parents’ later music behaviors with their own children, adjusting for other aspects of the early artistic environment. Parents reported high frequencies of music activities in the home, with most parents singing or playing recorded music to their children on a daily basis. Notably, the frequency of parental music making was unrelated to family income or to participation in music classes. Parents’ opinions on the effects of music education reflected a widespread belief that music classes confer a variety of nonmusical benefits.

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