Abstract
Although teachers work constantly with parents, discussions concerning parental roles in children’s music learning are often left at the margins in music teacher training programs. The aim of this article is to offer a review of musical parenting research from an ecological perspective. Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory of human development is used as a lens to examine musical parenting research concerning infants, school-aged children, and adolescents. Issues pertaining to contemporary parenting in the Western world such as intensive parenting and concerted cultivation are also considered as they relate to parental music cognitions and behaviors. Implications for research and practice in music education are outlined at the end.
A first-year teacher is getting ready to conduct his first concert at a prestigious high school. Extremely proud to have landed the position of band director in the district’s top music program, he is both excited and nervous. A few minutes before the concert, hurried footsteps and loud voices disrupt his mental practice. A well-dressed couple opens the door to his dressing room and asks to talk. The mother speaks in a demanding tone, “Our son needs additional music lessons. He will be applying for college next year and ‘really needs’ to get top scores on the State Certificate of Merit Music Test, to boost his application. You need to find some extra time for him.” The young teacher does not know how to handle the situation. He needs to focus on the concert, yet does not want to sound rude. This is, after all, his first year on the job and he wants the community to like him. So he spends precious time talking to the parents instead of concentrating on the upcoming performance. When the conversation ends, it is time to go on stage. Despite being well prepared, he is beyond nervous. Open house is finally here. Children smile and laugh as they see familiar faces enter the school cafeteria, where three short pieces will be performed. Jenna, a frail third-grade student with enigmatic eyes is the only child who is not smiling. She knows that her parents will not attend the performance—they never have. When the time comes, Jenna looks down and sings carelessly, despite her beautiful voice. She is clearly disappointed. The music teacher is brokenhearted, yet unsure of what to do.
Music education occurs in a social space. The qualities of the interactions between teachers, students, and parents are known to affect music teaching and learning in many ways (Creech, 2010; Zdzinski, 1996). Parents play a particularly important role in the music experiences of their children (McPherson, 2009). Often described as children’s first music teachers (Zdzinski, 1996), parents create a home environment that may nourish music interests and development. Parental influence ranges from singing and dancing with small children, driving young instrumentalists to and from music lessons, assisting with practice at home, censoring music repertoires, attending live music performances, or simply by ignoring their children’s music activities (as in the second vignette) and proclivities.
Despite their importance, discussions concerning parental roles in children’s music learning are often left at the margins in teacher education programs. Yet knowledge of parental cognitions (i.e., beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, attribution, and expectations; Okagaki & Bingham, 2005) and behaviors is important because what happens in the home is related to what happens in school and vice versa (Ilari & Young, 2016). Music educators need to be informed about research findings in the growing field of musical parenting or the group of music-related cognitions, values, and behaviors of parents in relationship to their children, as these have clear implications for music teaching and learning. This article reviews research on musical parenting of children and adolescents using Bronfenbrenner’s (2001) bioecological theory of human development as a lens and draws implications for music education research and practice.
Theoretical Underpinnings: The Bioecological Theory of Human Development
Parenting, or “to be or act as a mother or father (to someone)” (“Parenting,” 2016), is a central mechanism for the transmission of cultural values across generations. Parents care for, rear, and apprentice children into culture (Ilari, Moura, & Bourscheidt, 2011). Parents also adjust their parenting according to children’s changing needs over time. Such behavior is necessary for human development (Bornstein, 1991). As Bronfenbrenner (2001) suggested, human development occurs through a complex interplay between sources of support and stress in a child’s life, as well as the interactions between them. Among his works, the bioecological theory of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 2001; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998) is built around the Process-Person-Context-Time or PPCT model (see Figure 1).
Graphic representation of the Process-Person-Context-Time (PPCT) model (Bronfenbrenner, 2001) with examples in music.
By Process, Bronfenbrenner and Morris (1998) mean a “progressively more complex reciprocal interaction between an active, evolving biopsychological human organism and the persons, objects, and symbols in its immediate external environment” (p. 996). For any interaction to be effective, it must be repeated with a certain frequency and over time. Examples include learning new skills like reading or playing an instrument.
The Person in the PPCT model refers to the characteristics that individuals bring into different social situations. There are three main types of characteristics: demand, or characteristics that may influence interactions due to preconceived expectations, such as age (e.g., babies usually do not play nocturnes by Chopin) and gender (e.g., gendered associations of music instruments); resource or characteristics that are related to mental and emotional resources including past experiences, skills, intelligence, social, and material resources; and force, or one’s personality and motivation (Bronfenbrenner, 2001). All three characteristics are likely to affect human music experiences.
The Context, in turn, is the most well-known aspect of Bronfenbrenner’s (2001) theory. It refers to the four interrelated systems: micro, meso, exo, and macro. The microsystem represents the closest influences in a child’s life, such as the home, the school, child care, and neighboring groups. Parent-child music interactions in early (Addessi, 2009) and middle childhood (Cali, 2015) are situated at the microsystem level. Given that humans spend time in more than one microsystem, there are vital interrelations between them, like interactions between parent, student, and teacher (Creech, 2010), as described in the two opening vignettes. Such interrelations are situated at the mesosystem level. The next level, the exosystem, refers to the settings and experiences that are independent of the child but play a role in the lives of the adults surrounding the child, and, consequently, in the child’s life. The influences of the mass media and consumerism, as well as new technological developments as they relate to children’s lives (Young, 2009) are some examples. The macrosystem represents the larger cultural context in which the child lives and includes ideologies and attitudes. Enrolling children in private lessons with the aim of boosting college applications (as in the opening vignette) is an example of how macrosystemic forces may interact with the other systems and directly affect the child.
Finally, the Time in the PPCT model is compartmentalized into three parts. The microtime addresses the question: What is happening during an activity or interaction? The mesotime relates to how consistent activities and interactions are in a person’s life. An example in music is parental support of music practicing. The macrotime refers to the social and historical time in which the child lives, and how it relates to his or her major life transitions.
The bioecological theory of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 2001; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998) was used in this article as a lens to situate and interpret musical parenting research. Research studies discussed ahead come from varied fields such as music psychology, sociology, and music education. They were grouped into three emergent themes: musical parenting in a developmental perspective, musical parenting of young performers, and musical parenting in Western contemporary societies.
Musical Parenting in a Developmental Perspective
Parents and families are central to children’s socialization, or the process of learning behaviors, values and actions that allow one to become a member of an existing group. Boer and Abubakar (2014) found families to create music rituals by engaging with, listening to, and experiencing music in ways that hold symbolic meaning for its members. These music family rituals, which can be established very early on, are also subject to change as children’s music interests and engagement shift over the course of time.
Early Childhood
The diverse music practices that have surfaced in the literature on music in families with young children provide glimpses into parent-child musical interactions in the intimacy of the home. The communication between young babies and their mothers is said to be musical in nature, involving a high degree of mutuality, rhythmicity, and turn-taking (Trevarthen, Gratier, & Osborne, 2014). These musical conversations gradually give room to other forms of engagement with invented and conventional songs of one’s culture(s). Singing has been reported as a main activity between parents and young children (Custodero, 2006; Ilari, 2005). Parents and young children have also described listening to recorded music, watching music videos, and playing with music toys and play things (Sulkin & Brodsky, 2014; Young, 2008) together. Aside from music interactions in the home (Addessi, 2009), young children and their families have been found to engage musically in public spaces like the subway (Custodero, Cali, & Diaz-Donoso, 2016) and music classes (Koops, 2011). Repertoires found in these practices included invented tunes, lullabies, playsongs, parodies, and potpourris of familiar songs (Sulkin & Brodsky, 2014; Young, 2008), to name a few.
In line with Bronfenbrenner’s (2001) theorizing, personal characteristics and dispositions of both child and parent may affect music interactions in the beginning of life. Developmental milestones like becoming mobile and the emergence of speech play central roles in both young children’s music experiences and musical parenting. Other factors that have been found to affect parent-child music interactions are parental music background (Custodero & Johnson-Green, 2002), gender (Wills, 2011), work status (Ilari, 2005), cultural background, and ethnicity (Wills, 2011). Changes have also been reported in children’s music interactions with parents/caregivers as they grow up (Wills, 2011).
Parental cognitions, or beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, attribution, and expectations (Okagaki & Bingham, 2005) are known to influence parent-child musical interactions. In earlier works, whereas most parents agreed that music was important in the lives of young children (Custodero & Johnson-Green, 2002; Ilari et al., 2011), they also held strong beliefs about appropriate (e.g., children’s music) and inappropriate music (e.g., loud music; Ilari, 2005). By attending to parental cognitions, music teachers may be better equipped to work with young children.
Middle Childhood
An important rite of passage in children’s lives is entrance into school. Formal schooling introduces wider social norms to children. This is done by means of a gradual differentiation of local communities, cultures, and traditions from the social expectations that are governed by wider social, political, and economic forces (Trevarthen et al., 2014). The first years of formal schooling often coincide with the onset of middle childhood, when children begin to move from the institutional charge of the family to a new social arrangement with influences stemming from the family, the school, and the community at large (Eccles, 1999).
Middle childhood has been described as a period of rapid development of beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors (Eccles, 1999). 1 It is also a time when children have been known to become progressively more independent, autonomous, and musically sophisticated, reaching developmental plateaus in several music skills (Zimmerman, 1986). This probably explains why studies on musical parenting during the formative years of middle childhood have been primarily focused on children who learn music formally (e.g., Creech, 2010; Dai & Schrader, 2001; McPherson, 2009). Yet, in recent years, there has been a clear shift in musical parenting research in middle childhood, with much more emphasis being placed on music achievement than on children’s socioemotional development and bonding as in the early years (Cali, 2015).
Few studies to date have focused on music in the homes of school-aged children and parental roles in such experiences. A recent project examined home music experiences in families with 7-year-olds from 12 countries (Ilari & Young, 2016). Aside from the notorious influence of peers, teachers, and the media, a main finding was the central role of parents in children’s music lives. Children shared specific repertoires like country music or religious songs with one or both parents, joined parents for music events (e.g., musicals, choir recitals), and looked up to their parents when talking about music in their lives. Along the same lines, Cali (2015) found dancing, singing, and DJ-ing to be necessary in creating and sustaining mutuality in the relations of American families with 7- to 10-year-olds. Yet there were marked differences between parents who were professional musicians and those who were not. While the professional musician parents were very engaged in family music making for music’s sake, the nonprofessional musician parents showed a tendency to rely on music experiences to foster the developmental needs of their children. These different uses of music in the home speak to the complexity of family music rituals (Boer & Abubakar, 2014) and the roles of parents and children in them.
Adolescence and Early Adulthood
The increased autonomy and independence that mark the years of adolescence and young adulthood seems to suggest a comparatively less important role for parents to play in the music lives of teenagers than in infancy, early, and middle childhood. However, this assertion has been challenged. Research has found adolescents to enjoy listening to and playing music for and with family members (Driscoll, 1999). Additionally, there appears to be a strong relationship between parent-child bonds and music preferences in early adulthood. As Serbun and DeBono (2010) theorized, “exposure by a parent to a particular music in childhood creates familiarity and physiological responses that form the basis for memories and associations between the music and the parent” (p. 94). In fact, music preferences of parents may even predict music choices of adolescent children (ter Bogt, Delsing, van Zalk, Christenson, & Meeus, 2011). Taken together, these studies support the idea that family music rituals leave imprints that children may carry with them throughout their lives (Boer & Abubakar, 2014).
Musical Parenting of Young Performers
As noted earlier, researchers have devoted much time to the study of musical parenting of young performers, that is, children and adolescents who learn music through formal instruction (Creech, 2010; Davidson, Howe, Moore, & Sloboda, 1996; McPherson, 2009). Unsurprisingly, parental beliefs about the roles of music and music learning in human life not only vary but also translate into different reasons for enrolling children in music education. In earlier studies, some parents reported investing in their children’s music education due to perceived intrinsic benefits associated with music learning. These included the development of musicality, aesthetic sensitivity, and enrichment of one’s inner life (Dai & Schrader, 2001). Other parents, instead, were more focused on external rewards associated with learning music formally including social recognition and opportunities for children to learn skills that would help them in the future. Still, others explained their choices based on the development of personal attributes in children, like a strong work ethic or extramusical skills (e.g., mathematics, cognitive abilities, etc.) that may result from formal music education (Dai & Schrader, 2001). Thus, parental reasons for investing in children’s formal music education seem to be influenced by a combination of contextual (i.e., micro, meso, exo, and macrosystemic) forces along with child dispositions (i.e., the person in the PPCT model), process, and time (Bronfenbrenner, 2001).
There is also a strong connection between parental beliefs about the role of music in one’s life and levels of involvement in children’s music education. Earlier studies conducted with high-achieving young instrumentalists (Howe & Sloboda, 1991) and concert pianists (Sosniak, 1985) have sustained that parental involvement was key, even in cases where parents had little to no formal knowledge of music. Creech (2010) defined parental involvement in relationship to three main forms of support: behavioral (e.g., monitoring the child’s progress, assisting with practice), intellectual (e.g., attending performances, listening and talking about music with the child), and personal (e.g., showing caring behaviors, offering help and support while preserving the child’s autonomy). The author suggested that all three forms of support coexist, yet change over the course of the development of young musicians. Behavioral support, for example, may become less effective in adolescence when young musicians become more susceptible to external criticism and performance anxiety. Intellectual support, in turn, may reach its highest peak during this period (Creech, 2010).
Within the area of behavioral support, parent-child interactions during home practice sessions have received considerable attention from scholars, probably due to their importance, particularly during the first year of instrumental tuition. McPherson and Davidson (2002) examined maternal roles in the practicing habits of children in Australia and the United Kingdom over a period of 9 months. Most mothers reminded their children to practice their instruments at the onset of the study, although this percentage dropped considerably over time. After the novelty of learning a music instrument began to wane and the difficulties inherent to instrumental performance surfaced, a decrease was seen in both parental behavioral support and children’s motivation to practice. The authors highlighted the important role that parents played in helping young instrumentalists maintain their attention, cope with emotional difficulties, and develop self-monitoring skills and motivation to persist in instrumental music, particularly after the initial enthusiasm of learning a music instrument had diminished.
The role of parental support in sustaining motivation for instrumental learning has also been discussed in cases of “talented” children. Witte, Kiewra, Kasson, and Perry (2015) found that parents of talented children tend to introduce them to a talent domain early in life. While some parents had excelled in these domains earlier in life, others noticed some dispositions in their children early on. Regardless of their initial motivations, once parents confirmed their children’s potential, they went in search of appropriate coaching, even if this meant making sacrifices at home. Parents usually set a high bar for children’s performance, oftentimes modeling high achievement themselves. Family life often revolved around children’s practice sessions and competitions, with parents handling a wide range of managerial duties (Witte et al., 2015). These findings are in line with the notion that strong parental music values are likely among the strongest predictors of music achievement (Sichivitsa, 2007).
Musical Parenting in Contemporary Western Societies: Macro-Time Issues
Thus far, I have surveyed the literature on musical parenting of children from birth to adolescence following a developmental-chronological order. But a strictly chronological view can be criticized as time is only one factor to affect parental cognitions and behaviors. Process, person, context, and time (Bronfenbrenner, 2001) can also affect musical parenting. While it is fair to say that some of the aforementioned studies have offered rich contextual descriptions to situate musical parenting (Custodero, 2006), others (Ilari, 2005) have left out vital influences at the macrosystem and chronosystem levels. These influences include parental conceptions of childhood and their associations to specific social and cultural groups in specific historical periods.
Conceptions of Childhood and the Intensification of Parenting
Parental involvement in children’s lives has changed substantially over the course of time (Bernstein & Triger, 2011). The birth of a baby culture in the 1990s in Western countries, along with the wave of consumerism that stemmed from it (Thomas, 2007), have helped redefine our conceptions of what a child is, what childhood should look like, and how parents should interact with and care for their children (Bernstein & Triger, 2011). Musical parenting has also been deeply affected by these socially constructed conceptions. Musically speaking, what different social and cultural groups expect of children has direct bearing on the ways that parents think about and structure music experiences for their children (Young, 2015).
A phenomenon that has been observed by several scholars, particularly in middle- and upper-class families in Western societies, is the intensification of parenting (Furedi, 2001). Intensive parenting 2 has been characterized not only by constant supervision and monitoring of children but also by specific beliefs and behaviors toward children and child rearing. Some have related the emergence of intensive parenting to environmental factors, particularly the fact that urban children now spend considerable amounts of time playing indoors as opposed to earlier generations due to societal concerns with safety (Bernstein & Triger, 2011; Ilari & Young, 2016). Others have viewed intensive parenting as a concern with getting children ahead in a competition-driven world (Furedi, 2001).
Intensive parenting and musical parenting are connected in many ways. As an example, many parents see music learning as a means for children to develop abilities while building a curriculum vitae that will enhance their chances of being admitted to a prestigious university (as in the first vignette). Underlying such parental beliefs and practices are conceptions of children as living through a process of becoming (Young, 2015). Such conceptions are often at odds with those of music educators who usually perceive children as undergoing a process of being (Young, 2015).
Conceptions of child, childhood, and intensive parenting are further affected by social class. Working-class parents have been found to engage in the accomplishment of natural growth, that is, they ensure that their children have their needs of food, shelter, comfort, and other basic needs met (Lareau, 2011). Middle-class families, in turn, have been found to engage in concerted cultivation or in practices that “stimulate their children’s development and foster their cognitive and social skills” (Lareau, 2011, p. 5). Concerted cultivation involves enrolling children in a wide range of extracurricular activities and the provision of ample opportunities for children to interact with figures of authority. As one of the main extracurricular activities that children engage in, music has been at the heart of research on concerted cultivation (Lareau, 2011). One of the negative consequences of concerted cultivation is overscheduling. As an example, Ilari (2013) found middle-class children to have many weekly activities on their schedule, with little time left for practicing their instruments. Such a finding, which may be common to other groups of children, is probably at odds with the expectations of many music teachers (and, paradoxically, parents). This is just one example of how contextual and time issues (Bronfenbrenner, 2001) may affect musical parenting and music education.
Final Discussion and Implications for Music Education
As we have seen, musical parenting—the group of parental cognitions, values, and behaviors toward music—is a complex phenomenon that is not static, but susceptible to change. This happens because child development occurs within a web of influences of person, process, context, and time (Bronfenbrenner, 2001). Children’s music lives are also in a permanent state of flux. Parents, therefore, need to constantly strive to strike a balance between autonomy and assistance as their children develop and grow in culture, so to support and not hinder 3 their development, in and through music. Yet, amid these changes, there is also some degree of continuity, as in family music rituals and children’s music taste.
Still, there is much that needs to be uncovered in terms of musical parenting. There are some serious gaps in the research literature, and four major ones are worth discussing. First, most studies that were available at the time of writing were conducted with middle-class Western families. Descriptions of musical parenting in other social and cultural groups, even within a same geographical region, remain elusive. Given the amount of variability both between and within cultural groups (Tudge, 2008), it is vital for future research to examine the role of these important social and cultural markers on musical parenting. Second, existing research on musical parenting has been influenced, to some extent, by the constraints inherent to research methodologies, particularly when the studies involved home visits. Entrance into a home means placing oneself into the private space of the family with its intricate web of interpersonal relationships and roles, habits, and activities (Ilari & Young, 2016). This raises serious ethical questions in terms of participant privacy and anonymity. Furthermore, given that parenting and family life are not static, but likely to change over time (Alwin, 2003), musical parenting research findings are always situated in time and space, and subject to much variation. Third, the pressure that has been placed on parents to perform their roles “well” and in a somewhat prescribed way (Furedi, 2001) may have affected responses in earlier surveys and interviews. That is, in previous research, some parents may have shown a high degree of social desirability, or a tendency to answer questions in a way that was perceived as being correct, good, or expected. Longitudinal work on musical parenting could be useful to partly circumvent this problem. Fourth and finally, musical parenting research conducted to date has centered predominantly on the maternal figure, with little information being available on fathers’ cognitions, values, and behaviors. To complicate matters, limited data exist to reflect the diversity of family configurations that exist in our current times. Research needs to address these issues urgently as they have clear implications for music education.
To conclude, it is vital for music teacher education programs to bring discussions concerning musical parenting to the forefront, as music education is above all relational. As constellations, families differ considerably in how they experience and value music, which makes it difficult to prescribe a single, universal way to interact with parents. However, there are issues that are common to most families (e.g., parental desires for their children to thrive) and these should be included in teacher education curricula and professional development. Knowledge of the triadic nature of formal music education, the changing nature of musical parenting, and the many factors that help shape musical parenting, is likely to empower teachers in their interactions with parents and students. It certainly would have empowered the young teachers described in the opening vignettes to interact in a more effective and assertive way with the parents and families that crossed their path. (The vignettes, by the way, stem from true stories.)
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.