Musical tweens: child and parent views on musical engagement in middle childhood

Abstract

The purpose of this intrinsic case study was to explore the perceptions and beliefs about personal musicianship and music-making of 8- to 12-year-old children (‘tweens’) in combination with the perceptions and beliefs about musical parenting of their parents. The guiding research questions for the study centred on tweens’ ideas of their past, current, and future music-making, alongside their parents’ descriptions of current and desired musical involvement as well as perceptions and beliefs about the role of music-making in their tweens’ lives. Results included the central importance of listening for all of the families, as well as the importance of social and emotional factors for motivation of music learning. Parents viewed their roles as provider, encourager, and coordinator and expressed satisfaction with the degree of control they had over their children's music participation. Children expressed broad aspirations for future involvement in music and described some disconnect between in- and out-of-school music experiences. The paper concludes with a discussion of the findings and implications for music educators.