Music at home and in the preschool: children and music participation in the early years

This paper examines formal early childhood programs, their music content and links to the home environment. Data from two research sites have been utilised to indicate songs children learnt at pre-school and then introduced into the home. Some songs were found to have been learnt at the early childhood centre and then sung at home to the extent that one child sat her family down and formally taught them the song she liked. Two songs, part of this group of songs sung in both contexts by the child, are discussed in relation to their particular properties and what made them a suitable vehicle for three and four year-old children to bring their own pre-school knowledge into the family home and become mediators of culture. The Vygotskian frame is used to explore the role of music in culture, the child's engagement with the music and to surmise that it is the child's relationship to the particular music that made this exchange between centre and home possible. For an inclusive approach to music in early childhood we would argue that early childhood music programs could usefolly focus on the languages of childhood learning, that is, the languages of engagement and participation.