Toddler Music: a Socio-Cultural/Historical Examination of the Musical Development of Two-Year-Olds and Their Carers in a Child Development Laboratory Classroom
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TODDLER MUSIC: A SOCIO-CULTURAL/HISTORICAL EXAMINATION OF THE MUSICAL DEVELOPMENT OF TWO-YEAR-OLDS AND THEIR CARERS IN A CHILD DEVELOPMENT LABORATORY CLASSROOM BY DONALD JOSEPH WACHTEL JR. DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Music Education in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2014 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Gregory F. DeNardo, Chair and Research Director Professor Janet R. Barrett Associate Professor Daniel J. Walsh Professor Brent A. McBride Abstract The purpose of this study was to describe the music and musical practices two-year-olds, their caregivers, and I chose to purposefully engage in together, how this engagement reflected what was valued in various communities of practice they participated in in daily life, how this engagement reflected what music and musical practices they had access to, how access was given or obtained, and the ways musical practice was transformed in an early childhood classroom through mutual participation and negotiation of cultural meanings. The theoretical framework of this study is provided by the socio-cultural/historical learning theories of Barbara Rogoff (Transformation of Participation Perspective), Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (Situated Learning, Peripheral Participation, and Communities of Practice), as well as Lev Vygotsky (The Historical Child) and Jerome Bruner (Humans Predisposition to Culture). The following research questions were investigated: 1. How do the members of a two-year-old Child Development Laboratory (CDL) classroom share, negotiate, and transform musical understanding and activity through participation in a musical community of practice? 2. What are the cultural meanings behind what is shared and how are these meanings negotiated and transformed? 3. How do values and access influence what is shared, negotiated, and transformed musically in this CDL classroom? 4. What musical understandings and activities are brought into the CDL classroom and how are these musical understandings and activities shared, negotiated, and transformed? ii An interpretive, ethnographic research methodology was employed. Complete observer, observer participant, and participant observer data generation methods were employed through generating field notes and video recordings over five months in an intact classroom of two- year-olds and their teachers in an early childhood center housed at a large Midwestern university. Interviews with 10 parents, two teachers, and the associate director of the center were also conducted. Codes were developed that described the development of rapport between myself and the participants, the sociocultural aspects of the musical play the children, teachers, and myself engaged in alone and together, and personal and communal recurrences that centered on musical activity between participants. Four themes related to theories of sociocultural development that formed the conceptual framework of the study were observed during the data generation process. 1. Music play occurred when singing, recorded music, and musical instruments were introduced into play. 2. Music play involving singing, recorded music, and playing instruments transformed activity. 3. Music play that was introduced into activity was altered and expanded upon by the introduction of others’ ideas. 4. The participants understood why I was there and because of this interacted with me with musical intention during play. iii Four themes related to how spontaneous music play changed and was changed by sociocultural interactions among the participants emerged from analysis of the data. These included: 1. Spontaneous music play was the result of intentional acts between participants. 2. Spontaneous music play was the result of intersubjectivity between participants. 3. Spontaneous music play was the result of neural fabulation. 4. Spontaneous music play became recurrent through the development of a musical “We.” Implications for research and pedagogy in early childhood education were identified for early childhood educators, music educators interested in early childhood music education, and music educators who work with early childhood educators. These implications focus on the nature of spontaneity in daily sociocultural interactions through music play in early childhood settings. iv To Lori, Josef, Daniel, Mom and Dad, and Dick and Carol v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my advisor and dissertation chair Gregory DeNardo for his vital council and support throughout the research and writing process. My committee members Daniel Walsh, for his valuable contributions to my understandings of qualitative research and young children’s development, Brent McBride for his much appreciated perspectives on the development of young children, and Janet Barrett for joining my committee in the final stages of writing and providing much appreciated input in the final document, and John Grashel and Matt Thibeault for their contributions to the process. I would also like to thank The teachers, staff, parents, and children at the Child Development Laboratory for their involvement in the research which could not have taken place without their cooperation and support. Finally I would like to thank my family, Lori, Joey, Danny, Mom and Dad, and Dick and Carol for their love and support the last six years. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction ……………………………………………………………………..…1 Chapter Two: Review of Related Literature…………………………………………………..…22 Chapter Three: Methodology and Methods……………………….…………………………..…63 Chapter Four: Themes Related to the Conceptual Framework……………………………..…..149 Chapter Five: Emergent Themes Related to the Spontaneous Nature of Music Play……….…171 Chapter Six: Discussion……………………………………………………..……………….....234 References…………………………………………………………………………………..…..245 Appendix A: IRB Approval Pilot…………………………………………..……………….….254 Appendix B: Parental Permission Form………………………………………………….….…255 Appendix C: Teacher Participation Form……………………………………………..………..257 Appendix D: Research in Schools Form………………………………………………...……...259 Appendix E: Song List…………………………………………………………………...……..263 Appendix F: IRB Approval Main Study………..………………………………………...…….266 Appendix G: Teacher Interview Consent………..……………………………………...……...267 Appendix H: Parental Consent Form……………………………………………………...……269 vii Chapter One Introduction Many music educators researching the musical development and musical understandings of preschool children focus on how children acquire or perform musical skills that adults believe will be important in the future. (Marsh, 2008; Moorhead & Pond, 1978; Young, 2003, 2009.) Much of this research is acultural; it does not consider how young children’s musical development is shaped by what kinds of music and musical activity are valued in a particular community of practice they interact with and why as well as how children obtain or are provided access to cultural tools needed to engage in musical activity. Research that considers the role of culture in music education often regards it in terms of something that happens to people. Most music education research also does not fully consider the roles value of and access to musical activities and materials plays in these communities of practice. These places may include the home, the classroom, outside the home daycare, church and other places where music is present. The dominance of certain developmental views of children’s music learning in music education research has obscured the view that children’s musical understandings may be constructed through mutual participation in the musical cultures that they are involved in every day. Young (2009) states, “Conventionally, music education research has focused on the details of practice and children’s musical behaviors drawing on traditions of developmental psychology. It has been insufficiently interested in wider social and cultural processes” (p. 695). Research concerned with music in early childhood that has sought to understand children’s musical development has become a model for appropriate music education practice with young children 1 according to Young. The dominance of developmental music psychology on music education practice has led to a prescriptive model of music learning that assumes that all children progress in comparable ways and should acquire similar musical skills prescribed by the profession as important for continued musical development over a school career (p. 696). Background My interest in this topic as it relates to early childhood education comes from multiple sources and reflection on a lifetime of music making, educating, and parenting. When I began my first semester as a doctoral student, I arrived on campus with fifteen years of teaching experience in a small rural school, having taught kindergarten through twelfth grade general music, band, choir classes, as well as eleven years of parenting experience in which my sons saw me not only as a musical parent, but also as a music teacher of others, their own school music teacher, as a performer in rock bands as well as orchestras and choirs, and a listener to a large variety of genres of music. I lived away from my family during the week during these first years as a graduate student. On weekends, at home, I would see my sons, who were eight and ten years of age at the time, playing my drum kit and guitars--playing music they had taught themselves. They would play music reactive games like Guitar Hero and Rock