Parental engagement in music with youngchildren : A cross-cultural study

Parents play an important role in fostering young children’s learning. Specifically, parents are critical in terms of providing stimulating and responsive experiences in promoting young children’s development in the early years (Ghirotto & Mazzoni, 2013; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). Also, parents’ responsiveness to children’s learning is important, and this is most vividly illustrated in brain development research (e.g., Bradford, 2012; Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2015; Jensen, 2008). Besides this research in the West, researchers in the East (e.g., Luo, Tamis-LeMonda, & Song, 2013; Yim, Boo, & Ebbeck, 2014) also consistently confirm the significant role of parents in facilitating children’s learning.

Parents are commonly regarded as being an indispensable factor behind young children’s musical experience (Gudmundsdottir & Gudmundsdottir, 2010; Youm, 2013; Zdzinski, 2013), mainly because parents are usually their children’s first music teachers (National Association for the Education of Young Children NAEYC, 2005). They can influence both the quantity and quality of the musical environment at home (Acker, Nyland, Deans, & Ferris, 2012; Brand, 1986; Custodero, Britto, & Brooks-Gunn, 2003). Researchers, therefore, have called for parents to be actively engaged in their children’s musical learning.

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