South Korean parents' goals, knowledge, practices, and needs regarding music education for young children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore South Korean parents' understanding of and desires for music education for their children. Following qualitative research methods, data collection involved in-depth interviews, observations, written questionnaires, family musical materials, and the researcher's journals. The participants were 22 South Korean parents whose young children attended music programs in the Seoul metropolitan area. Data were analyzed using accepted techniques such as description, classification, and interpretation. To ensure the trustworthiness of this study, the researcher used multiple sources, and experts reviewed all materials and cross-checked all translations.Analyses revealed that 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 the opportunity to play through music. With respect to their knowledge about music education, parents described the music programs according to the activities they observed or experienced, but they did not show deeper understanding about a program's philosophy or history. Findings related to music practices in these families indicated that the primary activities were singing, listening to music, playing instruments, and dancing/movement. In describing their needs, parents expressed the desire to learn musical skills and knowledge not only for their children, but also for themselves. The findings of this study imply the necessity of education for parents of young children relating to a variety of aspects of children's music education.

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

“…A master outline of the findings is available in Appendix D (see online supplemental material available at http://jrme.sagepub.com/supplemental). Space does not permit findings related to every dimension of every theme to be described here, but complete explanations may be found in Youm (2008).…”

“…I used multiple methods of data analysis: field notes, interview transcriptions, videotapes, coding, description, constant comparison, theoretical saturation, inductive analysis, semantic relationship, substantive literature, contextualization, negative case analysis, classification, interpretation, and representation/visualization. The explanation of each type of data analysis may be found in Youm (2008).…”

“…Consequently, four negative cases in this study deepened my contemplation of the context and background of the cases, leading to rich analysis of the data. Complete presentations of four negative case analyses may be found in Youm (2008).…”

“…Musical parenting facilitates emotional bonding between parent and child (Custodero, 2006;Custodero, Britto, & Xin, 2002;Custodero & Johnson-Green, 2003, 2008. Custodero (2006) emphasized the importance of musical parenting, suggesting that singing helps develop emotional intensity between parent and child.…”

Construct Validity of the Children’s Music-Related Behavior Questionnaire

“…As such, they have provided information to which researchers typically lack in-depth access. For example, researchers have learned from parents that parents believe their use of music with their young children may achieve value beyond entertainment, helping them to pass along cherished traditions; enhance and encourage social bonding; accompany daily routines; and promote young children’s self-regulation, language acquisition, and music achievement (Adessi, 2009; Barrett, 2009; Berger & Cooper, 2003; Bergeson & Trehub, 1999; Calissendorff, 2006; Custodero, Britto, & Brooks-Gunn, 2003; Custodero, Britto, & Xin, 2002; Custodero & Johnson-Green, 2003, 2008; Dai & Schader, 2001; de Vries, 2009; Gibson, 2009; Gratier, 1999; Hendricks & McPherson, 2010; Koops, 2011; Lum, 2009; Papousek, 1996; Robb, 1999; Summa-Chadwick, 2009; Trehub, 1999; Trehub et al, 1997; Valerio, Sy, Gruber, & Stockman, 2011; Yazejian & Peisner-Feinberg, 2009; Youm, 2008). Researchers who study child development have found that parents are able to document children’s cognitive, physical, language, social, and emotional development reliably.…”