International Journal of Community Music - Volume 12, Issue 1, 2019

The United Kingdom has seen an increasing number of children entering the looked after care system (foster care, adoptive care or residential care). Due to this increasing number, there have been several music projects set up in the United Kingdom, which aim to provide opportunities for musical engagement for looked after children. This article aims to examine the impact that a music project has on children in foster care and their carers. Using a case study strategy to examine the Loud and Clear project based at Sage Gateshead, this research took on a multi-methodological approach. Focus groups and interviews were constructed to collect the narratives of participants’ experiences of attending the project and to identify the impacts the project may be having. Additionally, participatory observations were also undertaken to see first-hand the approaches that the facilitators were using within sessions to meet the needs of the participants. Findings indicated that attending a music project helped facilitate a sense of structure for foster children while also providing unique opportunities for carers to socialize with one another – these being two key areas that are often lacking in participants’ lives, that can be seen to be overcome through active participation within a music project.

Through numerous studies in the field of brain and learning research we know that the first years of a child’s life play a crucial developmental role and that actively engaging with music in these early years can have positive effects on overall development. Music addresses all aspects of intelligence – the cognitive, emotional, social, mental and the spiritual. It touches, unites and encompasses every facet of being human. Attachment Theory emphasizes the primary importance of secure bonding and attunement in children’s development. In Germany, parent–child music groups have boomed since the 1990s. In recent years there has been a movement in the area of Elemental Music Pedagogy towards creating community music groups for parents of babies or young children with the explicit goal of strengthening the parent–child bond. In partnership with organizations supporting young mothers in hardship, music courses are being developed and offered for this specific group. This article aims to present the theoretical groundwork of such groups and examines recent practical examples.

In this article, we report on parental perceptions of socio-emotional skills and personality of children who were involved in community-based music and sports extracurricular (EC) programmes, and a group of children not participating in EC activities. This study is part of the USC brain and music project that investigated the effects of music education on the cognitive and socioemotional development of children from underserved neighbourhoods in Los Angeles for 5 consecutive years. Our primary aim with this study was to examine parental views on the potential effects of EC programmes on children’s socio-emotional skills and personality. Parents were interviewed yearly and were asked to rate their child’s skills and personality. After four years, parents of children involved in EC activities rated their children higher on the emotional stability personality trait, lower on aggression and lower on hyperactivity compared to children not involved in EC activities despite no differences in these measures at the beginning of the study and before children’s entry into their programmes. These and other findings are discussed in light of Bronfenbrenner and Morris’s Bioecological Model of Human Development. The implications for community music are also outlined.

The aim of this study was to explore how South Korean immigrant mothers perceived and supported their children’s musical activities and how acculturation might have affected these mothers’ musical parenting. A qualitative case study was carried out for this inquiry and in-depth interviews with thirteen Korean immigrant mothers provided rich data about their musical parenting. The interview data indicated that the immigrant mothers had a strong belief about their children’s musical engagement and this belief led them to support their children as best as they could even if it required a great amount of time and money. Also, it was clearly found that these immigrant mothers’ musical parenting has been significantly affected by the acculturation process. They all agreed that their decisions on their children’s musical participation would have differed if they lived in Korea. Unlike native Korean mothers who showed a tendency to discontinue support for their children’s musical activities when they reached upper elementary grades, the immigrant mothers were willing to support their children’s musical participation as long as possible. Various factors seemed to have influenced this decision, including a desire for lifelong music participation as a possible tool for college admissions.

Popular music has a long and often contentious history with parents of young children in the United States. From Jazz in the 1930s to Rock ‘n Roll in the 1960s and Rock music in the 1980s, parents have often looked warily on new trends in music. But, with the ubiquity of popular music in contemporary life, how do parents of young children today view the popular music listening habits of their children? Is popular music informing the parent–child dynamic? This qualitative research study investigates the ways in which parents and their children are sharing popular music. Findings suggest that popular music is, today, an integral part of the parent–child relationship. Rather than view popular music as a possible form of negative socialization, parents and children are using shared engagements with popular music to navigate not only music-oriented experiences but life-based experiences. That is to say, popular music sharing serves as a way for parents and children, together, to read their world and explore their place in it. The question then becomes: what might we learn from those musical relationships that might enrich our community music programmes and our roles as community music facilitators?

To gain further insight into the beliefs and perceptions of parents to inform instruction in early childhood (EC) music settings, the purpose of this multiple case study was to determine what goals motivate parents to enrol themselves and their children in EC music classes and what they perceive to be the benefits of that participation. This study was guided by the following questions: what goals, if any, did parents have for themselves or their child while participating in an EC music class?; what do parents perceive as the benefits of EC music participation for themselves or their child? Participants were parents or caregivers of children between the ages of 1 month and 3 years who attended one of two EC music classes at a community music school affiliated with a large, research university in the Midwestern United States. A desire to engage in an activity that aligned with participants’ personal music experiences and knowledge, wanting to lay an early musical foundation for children and opportunities for socialization and connection with community were the primary goals discussed by participants that motivated them to enrol in music classes. Participants discussed several benefits of attending music classes including enjoyment, parent and child learning and establishing connections within and between different families in the class. Implications for community music educators and facilitators and researchers are discussed.

This article investigates the connection between musical mothering and morality, where involvement in musical practices provides middle-class women opportunities to validate their mothering. Previous studies of intensive mothering and concerted cultivation indicate struggles with competitiveness, perfectionism and anxiety. However, there is a scarcity of research that looks closely at the diversity of women’s experiences of mothering, particularly through the lens of music as a social practice. This intergenerational sociological study of Australian women applies Bourdieusian and feminist theory to expand music education research by analysing the intersection of music, motherhood, gender, class and generation. This article explores excerpts from the musical life stories of three mother–daughter relationships and the ways in which they produce musical children and maintain musical selves. The findings highlight the diversity within middle-class motherhood and the differing ways in which the field of mothering, family habitus and music are negotiated to construct musical and mothering subjectivities.

I inquired with parents and primary caregivers about why they supported their children’s participation in music activities in an out-of-school space and what they expected from such participation. To interrogate Lareau’s concept of concerted cultivation, I was interested in exploring the extent to which there might be differences in parental or primary caregiver expectations by race or socio-economic status. In the Boston Children’s Chorus (BCC), I found a community youth music programme where household income, race and ethnicity were reasonably diversified. Structured interviews with 132 parents and primary caregivers suggested that practices and discourse most worth analysis in regard to parenting and community music operate not at the level of race, ethnicity or social class, as Lareau suggests, but instead they operate at a local network level. The ways in which parent or caregiver trust in the community youth music programme developed through these local networks, and the ways in which the community youth music programme may have expanded social networks for families emerged as themes for further examination.

This article explores the musical hopes and dreams of three families representing a range of diversities in the greater Cleveland area. I engaged in monthly fieldwork visits with each family for twelve months, including interviews with parents, children and additional related adults, and observations in the home and community. I conducted a specific ‘Hopes and Dreams’ interview with each family, which forms the core of data for this article, but the additional months of fieldwork further inform and help interpret the data. Parents indicated their views that music served as a means for connection to family members and community, as a form of enjoyment, and as a means to developing self-efficacy. I conclude by suggesting implications for music educators based on these themes.