Parents’ Goals, Knowledge, Practices, and Needs Regarding Music Education for Their Young Children in South Korea

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore South Korean parents' understanding of and desires for music education for their children. Following a constructivist paradigm and qualitative research methodology, data collection involved in-depth interviews, observations, written questionnaires, family music materials, and the researcher's journals. The participants were 22 South Korean mothers whose children (younger than 5 years old) attended music programs in the Seoul metropolitan area. Data were analyzed by coding, description, constant comparison, inductive analysis, contextualization, negative case analysis, classification, and interpretation. Analyses revealed that these parents' goals for their children's participation in music programs included facilitating the child's development, enriching the child's life, preparing for future learning, and providing opportunities to play through music. They described the music programs according to the activities they observed or experienced but did not show deeper understanding about a program's philosophy or history. Family music practices indicated that the primary activities were singing, listening to music, playing instruments, and dancing/movement. Participants expressed the desire to learn music skills and knowledge not only for their children but also for themselves. The findings of this study demonstrate the necessity of education for parents of young children relating to various aspects of children's music education.

What do mothers say? Korean mothers' perceptions of children's participation in extra-curricular musical activities

“…This particular mother even mentioned that she listened to classical music during pregnancy, as she believed in prenatal music education. Such parental perceptions are consistent with other studies of Asian mothers' perceptions regarding children's participation in music (Choi et al 2005;Youm 2013).…”

“…Yet, seldom have scholars addressed this issue. Children's involvement in extracurricular musical activities, regardless of socio-economic status (SES), is widely prevalent in most East Asian countries and it is very common for children to participate in formal musical activities from an early age (Choi et al 2005;Youm 2013). In Ilari's study (2013), a middle-class Taiwanese mother who showed prominent aspects of concerted cultivation in her parenting style also showed some unique characteristics of East Asian parents' high zeal for their children's music education.…”

Music@Home: A novel instrument to assess the home musical environment in the early years

“…The factor structures of the Infant and the Preschool versions differed in terms of sub-factors they included, reflecting variations in the musical engagement and nature of parent-child interactions between the two age groups. The dimensions identified and the parallels and differences between the Infant and the Preschool versions are outlined below, and provide new intuitions about early musical experience in the home adding to previous research that has explored this concept either for descriptive purposes [ 28 – 33 ] or in music educational contexts [ 32 ], [ 41 – 43 ].…”

Music Teacher Knowledge: An Examination of the Intersections Between Instrumental Music Teaching and Conducting

“…This protocol is grounded in an attempt to understand the experiences and perceptions of the participant, and allows the researcher to analyze, and interpret the participants' descriptions and perceptions in relation to their teaching practice and context. Several other music education researchers have utilized the Seidman protocol to examine the lived experiences of music teachers (Brown, 2004;Edgar, 2012;Gavin, 2012;Furman, 2012;Vasil, 2013;Youm, 2013).…”