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No abstract

This article concerns children's engagement and participation in a musical dialogue, with the adult taking the role of the more-experienced participant and frames the activity as a musical play activity (in both senses of the word 'play'). It presents an analysis of empirical data from a session with two six-year-old children interacting with and around a new music technology in a Swedish preschool setting and explores what participating in these practices implies for the children's learning. The results indicate that the communicatively established framing made it possible for the children (i.e. provided scaffolding for them) to participate actively in a joint playful music-making activity. The communicative framing provided by the adult who took the role of a more-experienced participant played a vital part in providing musical experiences, not only in guiding the children to explore the system but also in introducing mediating tools as a way of discerning musical aspects.

This study is an empirical investigation of what activities evolve when children interact with and around a new music technology (an Interactive Reflexive Musical System (IRMS), a kind of computationally augmented instrument), with and without an adult actively participating. What the nature of the participations’ communication is, what structuring resources they are introduced to and use, and whether or not the participants establish temporarily sufficient intersubjectivity are analysed. The empirical data consist of video observations from an after-school centre of, first, the children themselves interacting with each other and the music technology, and second, with a teacher participating in the activity. The result shows that the activities developed into different types of play-based participations: make-believe and/or musical play. Although the adult provides some structuring resources (counting, using metaphors and gestures) to engage the children in a ‘musical dialogue’ with the system, the participants do not establish temporarily sufficient intersubjectivity for engaging in a joint activity of this kind. The finding that the children (and adult) engage in many different kinds of activities illustrates the creative and open-ended nature of participating in social practices.

Enligt den svenska förskolans undervisande uppdrag ska alla barn få möjlighet att utveckla sin skapande förmåga. Forskning visar dock att förskollärare ofta känner sig osäkra på estetiska uttrycksformer, särskilt musik, och som följd undviker de att sjunga och spela med barn. Musik har samtidigt fått ett allt mindre utrymme i förskollärarutbildningen. I studien adresseras frågan vad ett musikundervisande arbete i förskolan innebär och vilka utmaningar förskollärare talar om i relation till arbetet med målstyrd undervisning i musik med förskolans yngsta barn. Studien är genomförd inom ramen för ett utvecklingsprojekt i samverkan med tre förskolor med 1–2-åriga barn. I projektet har fokusgruppssamtal med förskollärarna genomförts och detta har analyserats utifrån ett diskurspsykologiskt angreppssätt. Två tolkningsrepertoarer framträder i materialet: musik som känsla och musik som ämne, där förskollärarrollerna skiljer sig åt. En slutsats är att ett ämnesadekvat språk är viktigt för möjliggörandet av undervisningsuppdraget. Här befinns lärarutbildningen spela en central roll.