Musical tastes in early childhood and pedagogic implications : a critical multimodal interpretation

Abstract

This research was conducted in the light of the research questions: what kind of music / songs do five-year-olds like? How do they react to them? What musical elements from their favourite music / songs can be used in the classroom pedagogically?. The literature review presents other researchers’ findings with regards to: music for adults and for children in the early years, its educational benefits, their interpretation of it and also their musical tastes. The methodology highlights the main research instruments used in the case-study with 6 participants. These were video taped semi-structured interviews, during which the children were asked to draw something about their favourite song. Then they had to listen to it, and then answer a few questions about it, in order to depict the participants’ facial expressions and their interpretation of the song. The multimodal framework used for data analysis, “V.I.S.A.G.E” , was built by me, with the aim to help decipher the facial expressions, on the guidelines of the “UNLOCK” framework (Cremona, 2012; as cited in Cassar & Cremona, 2012) and the “WINDOW” framework, (Deguara, 2014). These are also presented in the methodology chapter. Chapter 4 presents the score of the chosen song, the participants’ drawing, their facial expressions and their verbal communication, with regards to their favourite song. This was followed by an in-depth analysis of the children’s facial expressions, and how these co-relate / differ from their verbal communication and drawings. Chapter 5 summarises the musical elements from the chosen songs, which could be used in the classroom pedagogically as an early childhood teaching resource in a child-centred approach.