642631

research-article2016
RSM0010.1177/1321103X16642631Research Studies in Music EducationIlari

Article

Research Studies in Music Education

2016, Vol. 38(1) 23­–39
Music in the early years: © The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/1321103X16642631
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Beatriz Ilari
University of Southern California, USA

Abstract
Two assumptions that underlie much research in early childhood music education are that music is
a social endeavor and musical participation is beneficial to children’s overall social development. As
members of cultural and social groups, young children engage with music in a multitude of ways and
with different companions. This article examines young children’s musical engagement from a social
perspective, integrating research from a wide range of fields and theoretical orientations. The first
section brings forward a discussion on the nature of social interactions with an emphasis on three
building blocks of social cognition and their relationships to musical experiences of young children.
Studies on rhythmic entrainment, social identity in childhood, musical play, and the effects of formal
music education on children’s social development are discussed in the next sections, along with some of
the caveats of current theorizing. Implications for future research and practice in music education are
woven throughout the text.

Keywords
early childhood, musicality, musicking, social cognition, social interaction

An assumption underlying a large proportion of musical scholarship is that music is both uni-
versal and communicative (Cross, 2014), and thus a social endeavor (see Turino, 2008). This is
evidenced by the fact that music has been used by different societies across time and geographi-
cal borders as a soundtrack to daily activities, as a means to create and express emotions and
ideas, to celebrate special occasions, and to strengthen community affiliation and group cohesion,
among other purposes (Merriam, 1964; Turino, 2008). Specifically, there is some agreement
that music holds many social functions such as contact, social cognition, co-pathy (i.e., the
social element of empathy), communication, coordination, cooperation and social cohesion
(see Koelsch, 2010). Some have defined these as universal functions in the sense that they have
existed, to some degree, in both individualistic and collectivistic cultures across the world and

Corresponding author:
Beatriz Ilari, University of Southern California, Thornton School of Music, Department of Music Teaching and
Learning, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0851, USA.
Email: ilari@usc.edu
24 Research Studies in Music Education 38(1)

over time. It follows then that as humans musick, or, participate in and engage with music in
diverse ways through performing, listening, composing, and improvising (Small, 1998), they
derive and construct personal, social and cultural meanings (Kerchner & Abril, 2009; Small,
1998). As a powerful socialization medium, music holds the potential to impact the construc-
tion and transformation of social realities (DeNora, 2000).
The ubiquity of music extends well into the early years of life. Young children are drawn to
music from very early on (Custodero, 2005). When they hear music, newborns often pause
their behaviors and make discrete eye movements as they search for sounds in space (see Ilari,
2002). Very young babies communicate with their mothers and caregivers in a musical fashion
(Malloch & Trevarthen, 2009). Infant–mother dyads rely on the timing and prosody of their
vocal utterances to create and follow patterns of communication that involve turn taking and
shared action (Gratier, 2003). Dissanayake (2012) suggests that these coordinated interactions
benefit babies in many ways, including in respect to attachment and bonding, emotion recogni-
tion and regulation, and cultural and social learning. In other words, early musical interac-
tions allow young brains to “organize sensory functioning and represent their social world”
(Foran, 2009, p. 52). They also prepare babies to be musical (Dissanayake, 2012).
As children develop and grow in culture, they uncover new ways to interact with the people
around them, with music serving important roles in this process (Ilari, 2009). Through partici-
pation in everyday activities at home, in educational settings and in the community at large,
young children learn music in implicit, reactive, and deliberate ways (Young & Ilari, 2012).
Musical interactions in the early years may involve singing or playing with or for an adult, lis-
tening to and inventing music together, dancing, mimicking the gestures of an instrumentalist
or singer, and so forth. As with infants, toddlers and preschoolers and their companions also
rely on each other’s facial expressions, body gestures, and speech to communicate musical and
non-musical intentions and ideas when singing, listening, inventing music together or dancing
to a favorite tune (see chapters in Malloch & Trevarthen, 2009). There are, as Trevarthen,
Gratier, and Osborne (2014) suggest, increased opportunities for children to engage in playful
peer cultures in toddlerhood and the preschool years, which translate into a wide plethora of
musical experiences and exchanges. Through these experiences, young children learn a great
deal about the world that surrounds them, including the social world.
Music making in early childhood also provides “narrative forms and structures through
which children perform and enact ways of being in their developing identity work” (Barrett,
2010, p. 420). The construction of identity across the lifespan is directly linked to social learn-
ing and cultural transmission as it is based on perceptions of difference, or how we define our-
selves in relationship to “others” (S. Clarke, 2008; Henderson, Gerson, & Woodward, 2008).
Given that music is both a social and a cultural activity (Turino, 2008), how does engagement
with it relate to children’s social development? Inasmuch as music is featured in discussions
concerning early human interactions (e.g., Malloch & Trevarthen, 2009), the social-cognitive
mechanisms that support their emergence are rarely discussed in the field of early childhood
music education. Furthermore, while there is an implicit assumption that engaging in musical
play or taking part in collective music programs turns young children into social and prosocial
beings (Kirschner & Tomasello, 2009), a thorough review of related studies is not currently
available.
The aim of this paper is to discuss young children’s musical engagement from a social per-
spective, through the integration of research from a wide range of fields and theoretical orien-
tations. The nature of human social interactions is a departure point to discuss human social
cognition, which is illustrated by three “building blocks” that are known to be directly linked to
young children’s musical experiences. The next section brings forward a critical examination of
Ilari 25

research on rhythmic entrainment, social identity in childhood, musical play, and the “effects”
of formal music education on children’s social development. The last section consists of con-
cluding remarks along with questions for future research and practice.

Social interactions, social cognition, and music

From the first moments of life, we relate to other people. No baby is an island. (Bloom, 2013, p.47)

Social interactions can be understood as the engagement (i.e., a mutual and fluctuating
sense of connectedness) of two or more social actors in a complex co-regulated pattern
(DeJaegher, DiPaolo, & Gallagher, 2010). These complex phenomena involve a wide range of
verbal and non-verbal forms of behavior, and multiple contexts, as well as a varying number
of participants (DeJaegher et al., 2010). According to DeJaegher et al. (2010), for an interac-
tion to be social, it needs to maintain the autonomy of social actors, or “a self-sustaining
identity” (p. 443).
It is no secret that social interactions are central to human learning and development. Social
interactions help individuals develop a sense of belonging, which some believe to be a funda-
mental human need (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). In fact, deprivation of social interaction for
extended periods of time can be harmful as it may affect cognitive, linguistic, behavioral, motor,
and brain functioning (Innocenti, 2007). These findings agree with the premise that human
development is an integrated and complex dynamic system (Geert, 2011).
Social interactions are also imperative for social cognition, or the group of processes that
allow individuals to understand the emotions, intentions and actions of others and with others
in a social setting (DeJaegher et al., 2010; Frith & Frith, 2007). Social cognition relies heavily
on human exchange of signals such as speech, facial expressions, body gestures and the like
(Frith & Frith, 2007). Whereas most social signals are processed automatically and without
awareness, some are processed in a conscious and deliberate fashion. Frith and Frith (2007)
argue that deliberate and conscious signaling, which is processed at a higher-level, has the
potential to foster a substantial increase in collective actions through shared/negotiated mean-
ings. That is, the awareness that signals are being exchanged may contribute to the emergence
of unique forms of human communication and learning (Frith & Frith, 2007). Social signals
are, therefore, mechanisms that enable social cognition.
The development of social cognition, in turn, is complex and multifaceted. Any account of
how social cognition develops in childhood must take into consideration varied related issues
such as children’s imitation and learning from others, early understandings of intention and
agency, knowing the minds of others, and the development of morality (Ziv & Banaji, 2012),
to name a few. It is also imperative to examine the mechanisms (or building blocks) and pro-
cesses that underlie social cognition as they occur in the course of child development, more
so since they have clear bearings on musical experiences. As Koelsch (2010) contends, music
automatically triggers social cognition. For example, listeners automatically attempt to
attribute intentions to the person who has created or performed the musical piece that they
are listening to. Still within listening experiences, it is clear that listeners derive both inherent
and delineated meanings from the music that they hear (Green, 1997). And this occurs in a
social space.
In the next section, I discuss how babies and young children learn from, with and about oth-
ers (Frith & Frith, 2007), by examining three interrelated building blocks of social cognition,
namely, social referencing, joint attention, and joint action. These were chosen due to their
relevance for early childhood music teaching and learning. While these mechanisms are
26 Research Studies in Music Education 38(1)

important, they are not solely responsible for the development of social cognition in childhood,
as discussed later on.

Three building blocks of social cognition in early childhood

Social referencing.  Humans are social beings who are naturally endowed with the ability to
learn from others, oftentimes without the need to have first-hand experiences themselves (Frith
& Frith, 2007). Children and adults learn a great number of specific behaviors and actions by
simply observing others (e.g., putting one’s hand in fire and getting burned). Eye gazing is one
important form of social learning. According to Frith and Frith (2007), “the direction of some-
one’s gaze will point to something of interest and importance for us” (p. 7). When one follows
someone’s eye movements, he or she often mirrors their facial expressions and may even expe-
rience their emotions. Attention to the emotional reactions of others serves as a type of frame-
work that guides one’s responses to novel situations, objects and people. This is known as social
referencing (see Frith & Frith, 2007; Goodman & Tomasello, 2008). Babies are not born with but
develop social referencing abilities in the first year of life. That is, social referencing is an
achievement of what Goodman and Tomasello (2008) called the “9-month revolution”, or a
period of rapid social growth, starting at birth and lasting approximately nine months. Before
the emergence of social referencing at around nine months postnatal age, other important
milestones are achieved, such as the ability to share emotions and turn taking (Goodman &
Tomasello, 2008).
Babies use social referencing to learn about the world around them. Although empirical
research concerning social referencing and musical behaviors is still incipient, it seems reason-
able to accept that young children learn a great deal from watching their caregivers engage
with different repertoires. For example, babies and toddlers often turn their gaze to their moth-
ers or caregivers, as new repertoires, instruments or people are introduced in their lives, in
educational and community settings. Social referencing is, therefore, an important building
block of early learning. But do humans learn more easily from people whom they know and
trust than from strangers? While this seems intuitive, this assertion needs to be further investi-
gated as most research on social referencing has focused on mother–child or caregiver–child
interactions (see Frith & Frith, 2007). Still, there are some changes that occur in social refer-
encing as children mature. In experimental studies that compared infant learning from stran-
gers or familiar people using a social referencing paradigm, 14-month-olds did not learn from
complete strangers, but did learn from a stranger with whom they became familiar (Frith &
Frith, 2007). By contrast, 24-month-olds demonstrated that they could learn from strangers.
This is consistent with what many teachers witness in the early childhood music class, and
reinforces the importance of having parents and caregivers present, particularly in classes
aimed at infants and toddlers.

Joint attention: Moving from individual to shared to collective intentionality.  Joint attention is a
highly complex social-cognitive phenomenon (Shin, 2012) that refers to specific moments in
time when two individuals are aware that they are attending to something in common (Toma-
sello, 1995). Joint attention is important because it relates to one’s ability to understand the
intentionality behind actions. Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, and Moll (2005) suggest that
humans are uniquely attuned to the intentions and psychological experiences of others. They
use the term shared intentionality to describe collaborative interactions in which participants
share psychological states and goals, and coordinate their actions to pursue the latter. Shared
intentionality, they state, lays the foundation for important developmental milestones including
Ilari 27

the emergence of pretend play and language (Goodman & Tomasello, 2008). These, in turn, are
at the heart of social understanding.
Shared intentionality develops during the 9-month revolution that was described earlier. It
is a time when children begin to understand that individuals are intentional agents, who
“attend to and perceive their environments deliberatively and selectively” (Goodman &
Tomasello, 2008, p. 63). As noted, at around 9 months postnatal age, infants begin to exhibit
social referencing behaviors and engage in triadic interactions (e.g., child, adult, and a third
“party”). Triadic interactions involve gaze following, gesturing, pointing, and joint attention.
According to Goodman and Tomasello (2008), “shared intentionality is a necessary compo-
nent of triadic interactions, as the child must understand that the adult has specific intentions
toward the object to which they are interacting” (p. 22). A triadic interaction involving music
can be exemplified as follows. A child and his mother engage in musical play with some small
maracas. They shake the maracas in an uncoordinated manner, until the mother purposely
drops one of the maracas. Next, baby throws his maracas on the ground and watches his
mother. He waits for something to happen. He points to the maraca that is in his mother’s hand.
He smiles at mom and laughs in delight, when mom repeats the expected action by releasing
the second maraca to the ground. In this particular case, for the interaction to exist, the child
needs to understand the intentions of the adult (i.e., mother) in relationship to the object. (i.e.,
maraca). Other examples of shared intentionality as it pertains to music in the early years are
described in Forrester (2009) and McNair (2010).
Unsurprisingly, shared intentionality is also a natural part of collective music making.
Kirschner and Tomasello (2010) contend that shared intentionality is what allows for the
emergence of cooperative behaviors in collective music and dance. When musicking (Small,
1998) with companions, humans often perceive the other as a partner, that is, a cooperative
and similar member of one’s group, and this may feed into prosocial behaviors towards others
(see Kirschner & Tomasello, 2010). Shared intentionality also lays the foundation for cultural
transmission and learning (Goodman & Tomasello, 2008). As Tomasello and Rakoczy (2003)
explain, a young child moves from understanding companions as intentional agents to mental
agents roughly at age 4. The ability to understand others as mental agents is often referred to
as Theory of Mind (ToM) and can be defined as the ability to place oneself in the “mental
shoes” of others (Livingstone & Thompson, 2009, p. 95). Many scholars believe ToM to be a
central milestone in the development of human social cognition (Jenvey & Newton, 2014;
Slaughter, 2015). Yet, Tomasello and Rakoczy (2003) argue that the ability to understand
others as mental agents is, in fact, a second milestone in social cognition. They believe that
young children need to achieve a special milestone—shared intentionality—before they are
ready to understand their companions as intentional mental agents whose thoughts and
beliefs may be false. And this, they suggest, takes place through continuous interactions with
their companions, which involve perspective-taking and reflective discourse, with both being
mediated by language (p. 123). Consequently, at around age 4 or 5, children engage in
collective intentionality, or, the understanding of the interplay of multiple perspectives and
standards from the community at large, and how to meet cultural standards (Goodman &
Tomasello, 2008). Unsurprisingly, both shared and collective forms of intentionality are linked
to joint action.

Joint action.  Joint actions can be defined as social interactions in which two or more individuals
coordinate their actions in time and space, resulting in some environmental change (Knoblich,
Butterfill, & Sebanz, 2011). Joint actions also imply the existence of shared intentions. Kno-
blich et  al. (2011) believe that humans are naturally drawn to engage in joint action, as a
28 Research Studies in Music Education 38(1)

means to help others achieve their goals. Furthermore, joint action depends on two types of
human coordination:1 emergent and planned (Phillips-Silver & Keller, 2012).
Planned coordination gives origin to a type of joint action in which individual agents plan
their actions beforehand. In this case, planned actions are based on previous actions by others
or on desired outcomes of the individual agents themselves (Knoblich et al, 2011). Planned
coordination occurs, for example, when two instrumentalists play a duet on the piano. Their
actions are planned in advance, based on music performance goals as well as individual abilities
and dispositions. Emergent coordination, in turn, is a type of joint action that occurs spontane-
ously between individuals without prior planning (Knoblich et al., 2011). A classic example
found in the literature is the “chameleon effect” (Chartrand & Bargh, 1999), where individuals
mimic the mannerisms, gestures and vocal accents, as they speak with others or imitate their
singing behaviors in a musical setting. Within music scholarship, entrainment is possibly one
of the most widely studied forms of emergent joint action (Knoblich et al., 2011; Phillips-Silver
& Keller, 2012), even more so where young children are concerned (Eerola, Luck, & Toivianen,
2006; Ilari, 2015; Kirschner & Ilari, 2014; Kirschner & Tomasello, 2009, 2010; Trainor &
Cirelli, 2015; Zentner & Eerola, 2010).

Entrainment.  Knoblich et al. (2011) define entrainment as a “process that leads to temporal
coordination of two actors’ behaviors, in particular, synchronization, even in the absence of
a direct mechanical coupling” (p. 63). Within music, some scholars have preferred to call it
rhythmic entrainment (see Merker, Madison, & Eckerdal, 2009), to distinguish it from non-
music related forms. Rhythmic entrainment can be defined as a process through which two
different rhythms become synchronized, with a dominant rhythm “capturing” the other (Clay-
ton, Sager, & Will, 2004). Phillips-Silver and Keller (2012) also suggest two main components
of rhythmic entrainment: a temporal and an affective one. While the first refers to the metrical
structures that make humans clap or move to the beat of music, the latter refers to the mutual
sharing of affective states that results from rhythmic synchronization, as it occurs in early
mother–infant communication (see Malloch & Trevarthen, 2009; Trevarthen et al., 2014).
Another way to capture the distinction between the temporal and affective dimensions of
rhythmic entrainment is to examine collective forms of music making (Clayton et  al. 2004;
Cross, 2005; Kirschner & Tomasello, 2009). When humans dance, sing or play music together
they synchronize their voices and body movements to the pulse of a common, repetitive acous-
tic and/or audiovisual pattern (Clayton et al., 2004). It is the temporal dimension of rhythmic
entrainment that allows for this to occur. Yet, participation in collective music making has also
been associated with cooperation and group cohesion in adults (e.g., Hove & Riisen, 2009;
Reddish, Fischer, & Bulbulia, 2013; Wiltermuth & Heath, 2009), and young children (see
Kirschner & Tomasello, 2010; Trainor & Cirelli, 2015). The affective dimension of rhythmic
entrainment is obviously implicated in these claims.
From a developmental standpoint, the temporal and affective dimensions of rhythmic
entrainment appear to develop somewhat in tandem. As noted, rudiments of the affective
dimension of rhythmic entrainment can be seen in early interactions between babies and car-
egivers (Malloch & Trevarthen, 2009), which are rhythmic and communicative in nature, and
bear clear implications for emotional regulation and attachment. However, early prosocial
behaviors like helping and sharing typically do not emerge prior to the second year of life
(Brownell, 2013). Likewise, the ability to entrain to the musical beat typically emerges during
late toddlerhood/early preschool years (Kirschner & Tomasello, 2009). Even if newborns can
extract the underlying beat of rhythmic patterns (Winkler et al., 2008), and young babies show
periodic movements in response to music and sounds containing a strong, metrical structure
Ilari 29

(Ilari, 2015; Zentner & Eerola, 2010), they do not typically synchronize to the musical beat.
That is, at least two elements that enable rhythmic entrainment (i.e., perception and produc-
tion of body movements to perceived rhythmic and metric structures) are already present in
early life (Phillips-Silver, Aktipis, & Bryant, 2010). The other two elements, namely, the integra-
tion of perception and production and the adjustment of body movements to perceived beats
and metric structures (see Phillips-Silver et al., 2010), take some time to develop (for a discus-
sion see Kirschner & Ilari, 2014). Furthermore, there are substantial individual differences in
children’s rhythmic entrainment abilities, as the latter are influenced by formal music educa-
tion (Drake, Jones, & Baruch, 2000), culture (Kirschner & Ilari, 2014), and social context
(Eerola et al. 2006; Kirschner & Tomasello, 2009).
It is also important to remember that the temporal and affective dimensions of rhythmic
entrainment are not completely separate from one another. Whether there are causal links
between the two dimensions remains to be determined. But, as noted, recent studies have
suggested that there is some degree of association between rhythmic entrainment and early
forms of altruism in early childhood. Kirschner and Tomasello (2010) found more prosocial
tendencies in preschoolers who engaged in musical play by means of collective musical games
than preschoolers who only played together. Likewise, Cirelli, Einarson, and Trainor (2014)
found increased helpfulness in 14-month-olds if interpersonal movements followed metrical
regularities. These studies point not only to the need for more research on the topic, but invite
us to ponder the relationship between collective forms of music making in early childhood
(e.g. joint action, particularly rhythmic entrainment), and the social world. But before delv-
ing more deeply into these issues, it is important to consider the relationship between musical
engagement in early childhood, social cognition, and culture.

Musical engagement in early childhood, social cognition, and culture

If human life is infused with culture, then all social cognition is cultural too.
(Morling & Masuda, 2012. p. 430)

Culture is at the heart of social cognition. Tomasello and Rakoczy (2003) maintain that the
understanding of persons is likely to be the most fundamental cognitive skill in the process of
cultural creation and cultural learning. A central issue in the discussion of cultural learning
and social cognition is that of embodiment. Cognition, and thus, social cognition, is inherently
connected to our bodily interactions with the world (Gabbard, 2014). Although they exist and
are perceived in different contexts, bodies are constructed in somewhat similar ways, which
allows one to imitate and learn the gestures of others and to perceive their feelings, as the latter
are “an authentic product of body experience and culture” (Norris, 2001, p. 116). Interestingly,
babies come into the world with remarkable motor abilities to communicate and select atten-
tion towards human companions (see Trevarthen et al., 2014). Toddlers and preschoolers are
also known to be “natural movers” (e.g., Eerola et al., 2006), who respond to music by moving
their limbs, heads and bodies in a plethora of ways. These embodied responses to music, which
are important constituents of child culture (Bjorkvold, 1992), take place in the context of chil-
dren’s daily lives, particularly through play.

Play and musical play

The importance of play in children’s development has been underscored by educators and psy-
chologists alike (e.g., Roopnarine, 2010; Tomasello & Rakoczy, 2003; Trevarthen et al., 2014).
30 Research Studies in Music Education 38(1)

The first two years of a child’s life are marked not only by a growing awareness of choice and
use of objects, but also by an incremental increase in ways to communicate emotions and ideas
to their companions through play (Trevarthen et al., 2014). Analyses of natural play during
the first 18 months of life reveal both complexities and subtleties in the ever-growing collabora-
tion between infants and their mothers. Babies gradually move from imitation of expressions to
proto-conversations (which are musical in nature, as stressed earlier) and then to “person-to-
person” games, imitation of clapping and pointing “person-person-object” games to instances
of “showing off ”, cooperation in a variety of tasks, and later mimesis of purposeful actions (for
a detailed description of developmental changes see Trevarthen et  al., 2014, p. 181). These
experiences are important because they help young children to express emotions and gradually
master cultural meanings whilst socializing with others, in a playful and natural way.
Curiously, when children are around 2 years of age, they also begin to recognize distinctive
messages when using objects while playing with adult companions. Tomasello and Rakoczy
(2003) suggest that children in this age group not only engage with objects by imitating their
adult companions, but already understand the distinctions that the latter make when playing
with tools and toys. Whereas play with tools (i.e., artifacts used instrumentally) tends to be
socially mediated as it fulfills instrumental functions, play with toys (i.e., artifacts used in pre-
tense) serves a pretense function and is socially constructed, in that children and their adult
companions engage in a special type of shared intentionality (Tomasello & Rakoczy, 2003).
This is arguably analogous to particular uses of musical instruments by young children and
their companions—parents, siblings and teachers—in instances of shared musical play.
Marsh and Young (2016) define musical play as self-initiated activities that are enjoyable,
intrinsically motivated, and led and controlled by children themselves. A feature of musical
play that cuts across different cultural and social groups is its multimodal element. That is,
musical play often combines kinaesthetic, auditory and visual elements (Marsh & Young,
2016). Children sing, move, stomp, clap and may even use objects as they engage in musical
play, always within a common temporal framework. In many instances, musical play with com-
panions is, therefore, an embodied form of emergent coordination that occurs “in the moment”,
allowing for improvisation and creative ideas to emerge. A second culture-general characteris-
tic of musical play is its communicative and social interactional role. For the youngest of all
children, or those between 0 and 3, musical play is highly meaningful in that it relates to their
interactions with caring adults and also supports language development (Ilari, 2009; Marsh &
Young, 2016). As children mature, musical play expands into at least three different forms:
vocal play, musical play with instruments and sound objects, and spontaneous movements. As
Bjorkvold (1992) put it, musical play is a staple of child culture albeit with many local varia-
tions (Roopnarine, 2010). Songs, as auditory forms of play, are important pathways that con-
nect children’s inner and outer worlds, whilst providing opportunities for them to learn about
the social world.

Young children’s musical engagement, educational contexts and

the social world
The discussion thus far has focused on young children’s musical engagement, culture and
social cognition. Three building blocks of social cognition, namely, social referencing, shared
intentionality and joint action, have been discussed in light of musical engagement in the early
years. Rhythmic entrainment, a particular form of joint action, has been identified as an enabler
of social interaction and a potential catalyst for prosocial behaviors in children and adults alike
(e.g., Hove & Riisen, 2009; Kirschner & Tomasello, 2010). Unsurprisingly, recent theorizing in
Ilari 31

music psychology and related fields is also in accordance with these empirical findings. Cross
(2005, 2014), for example, argues that rhythmic entrainment combined with music’s floating
intentionality (i.e., or lack of universal meanings), are two properties of collective music mak-
ing that endow two or more individuals, who may hold contrasting worldviews, to coexist and
spend some safe time together. According to this view, music holds the potential to bond indi-
viduals. This is particularly promising in situations of conflict (Cross, 2014). These ideas are
also consistent with anthropological work by Hikiji (2005), who described collective musical
experiences of juvenile offenders in São Paulo, Brazil as a moment of suspension and safe time
passing.
On a related note and building directly on Small’s (1998) concept of musicking, Laurence
(2011) states that in collective experiences, music can be perceived as a means to promote self-
awareness, self-esteem, mutual tolerance and intercultural understanding. Given that music
making is directly linked to emotions, both music and musicking offer opportunities for humans
to enter the minds of others, to feel their feelings, whilst recognizing a shared humanity
(Laurence, 2011). In short, musicking may serve as a catalyst for some specific aspects of the
empathic process. Importantly, empathy is not simple emotion contagion, but a process that
“begins with a cognitive act of intellectual comprehension of someone else’s feeling in response
to the other’s experiences of feeling” (Laurence, 2011, p. 246). It follows, then, that musicking
and empathizing may feed off each other, and generate agency.
Drawing from these ideas, it seems logical to assume that engaging with music from an early
age may have a positive effect on individuals, and ultimately, on society as a whole. Along the
same lines, a recent study found a significant correlation between frequency of shared musical
activities in the home in toddlerhood and prosocial behaviors in preschoolers (Williams, Barrett,
Welch, Abad, Broughton, 2015). The authors speculate that prosocial behaviors emerge from
early parent–child musical activities, as the latter afford young children with opportunities to
exercise imitation, joint attention, shared intentionality, cooperation and mutual responsivity
(p. 121). Action songs (e.g., the Itsy Bitsy Spider, Ring Around the Rosie) that are common to
early childhood across the globe, may function as both affordances (Gibson, 1986) and catalyz-
ers of prosocial behaviors, in that they provide opportunities for children and parents to act as
equal partners who take turns and engage with music in mutual ways (Williams et al., 2015).
While causal links cannot be established from this study alone, the authors raise many impor-
tant issues regarding implicit, reactive and deliberative music learning experiences in early
childhood (see Young & Ilari, 2012).
The discussion now turns to deliberate music learning experiences that occur through for-
mal music education. There is some speculation that collective experiences within formal music
education (see Folkestad, 2006), as specific forms of musicking, may lead to gains in children’s
overall social competencies. However, a closer examination of studies on the effects of different
forms of musical engagement, particularly formal music education, on the social competencies
of preschoolers, school-aged children and adolescents, presents contrasting findings (e.g.,
Gerry, Unrau, & Trainor, 2012; Goldstein & Winner, 2012; Rickard et al., 2013). On the one
hand, some intervention studies suggest that group music education in early and middle child-
hood may positively affect children’s self-regulation abilities (Winsler, Ducenne, & Khoury,
2011), self-esteem (Costa-Giomi, 2004), school readiness (Ritblatt, Longstreth, Hokoda,
Cannon, & Weston, 2013), social inclusion (Welch, Himonides, Saunders, Papageorgi, &
Sarazin, 2014), and empathy (Cross, Laurence, & Rabinowitch, 2011), which are all central to
social cohesion. Likewise, case studies in community music (e.g., Hikiji, 2005) describe social
benefits associated with musical participation, in formal and informal ways. On the other hand,
other research has found either weak or no effects at all on children’s social skills (Goldstein &
32 Research Studies in Music Education 38(1)

Winner, 2012; Schellenberg, 2009). While methodological issues, different conceptions of

constructs such as empathy (see E. Clarke, DeNora, & Vuoskoski, 2015), musical curricula and
teaching approaches may be blamed for these contrasting results, there is a clear need for lon-
gitudinal work on the impact of formal music education on students’ empathy, prosocial behav-
iors and other social competencies.

Learning about others through musical engagement

A related area that has received little attention from scholars in the field is the development of
musical stereotyping in childhood and its relationship to children’s musicking (Small, 1998).
Although there is some discussion concerning the centrality of music in young children’s lives
(e.g., Lamont, 2008), singing and musicking as sources of identity construction (see Barrett,
2010; Whiteman, 2001), and the natural “open earedness” of young listeners (Hargreaves,
1982), little is known about the “people-associations” that they make when engaging with
music. This is important because music and musical performances are socially and culturally
situated, and therefore, “ethically saturated” (Trehub, Becker, & Morley, 2015, p. 2). Musical
engagement bears implications not only for social interactions and social cognition, but further
extends into the development of personal and group identities (see Barrett, 2010; North &
Hargreaves, 2008).
Based on social identity theory (Tajfel, 1978), studies concerned with the development of
ethnic and cultural identities suggest that children under the age of five already are aware that
social categories exist, and often identify themselves as members of particular groups (see
Bernal, Knight, Garza, Ocampo, & Cota,, 1990). That is, young children gradually learn to dis-
tinguish between the ingroup (“us”) and the outgroup (“them”) (Tajfel, 1978). These percep-
tions are shaped fairly early in development, although young children do not usually enact
them. Nesdale (2004) claims that starting as early as age four, young children begin to develop
a favoritism towards their ingroups, but usually without negative attributions to outgroups. As
children enter formal schooling, they also begin to understand the stability of their ethnicities
and cultural backgrounds, and by middle childhood, become more knowledgeable of cultural
and ethnic groups (Bernal et al., 1990). Interestingly, Nesdale (2004) found negative attribu-
tions to outgroups to emerge at around age seven or eight, which is coincidentally around the
same time when children’s open earedness (Hargreaves, 1982) begins to decline.
Intervention studies concerned with the reduction of negative attitudes towards outgroups
in middle childhood and adolescence have also yielded mixed findings (see Sousa, Neto, &
Mullet, 2005). Additionally, studies on musical stereotyping in young children were not found
at the time of writing. Whereas this may be a consequence of methodological difficulties inher-
ent to conducting research with young children (Marshall & Shibazaki, 2011), it should not be
confused with the assumption that young children do not make extra-musical associations
when engaging with music. On the contrary, what this suggests is the existence of some serious
gaps in our knowledge about musicking and social cognition in early childhood. It will be
important to fill in these gaps, as such knowledge has a direct impact on research and practice
in music education (for a discussion see Ilari, in press).

Concluding thoughts
In his seminal book, Small (1998) describes musicking as the act of participating in a musical
performance, by listening, performing, practicing, composing or moving/dancing, in any given
way. Small (1998) further argues that
Ilari 33

the act of musicking establishes in the place where it is happening a set of relationships, and it is in
those relationships that the meaning of the act lies. They are to be found not only between those
organized sounds which are conventionally thought of as being the stuff of musical meaning but also
between the people who are taking part, in whatever capacity, in the performance; and they model or
stand as metaphor for, ideal relationships as the participants in the performance imagine them to be:
relationships between person and person, between individuals and society, between humanity and the
natural world – even perhaps the supernatural world. (p. 13)

As a powerful means of social interaction, musicking affords children with opportunities to

develop their innate musicality (Trevarthen et al., 2014), which will be gradually transformed
by experiences within the rules and conventions of the societies and cultures around them.
Social referencing, shared intentionality and joint action are directly implicated in early, social
musical experiences. In the presence of infant-directed singing, for example, young babies
immediately turn their attention to their mothers—their gazes, smiles, body gestures and emo-
tional expression (Ilari, 2009). Interestingly, babies are not only attuned to the subtleties of
maternal singing, but also modulate their behaviors and learn socially accepted contingencies
and behaviors, such as falling asleep at the sound of a lullaby or being playful in response to an
action song (Trehub & Schellenberg, 1995). A few months later, a toddler might point to a ste-
reo from which music is emanating, lift his arms to indicate that he would like to be picked up
and dance with his adult companion. Preschoolers, in turn, gradually synchronize their body
movements to the beat of a favorite tune, while still watching their companions, and coordinate
their drumming “bouts” with their peers (Endedijk et  al., 2015). This is consistent with
Forrester’s (2009) description of a child’s musicality “as initially finding form and expression in
dyadic interaction, closely synchronized with a partner, and then gradually becoming more of
a self-focused and “individuated” set of practices” (p. 150). However, it is important to keep in
mind that social referencing, joint attention and joint action are, as mentioned earlier, building
blocks of social cognition. While these observable acts play important roles in enabling social
cognition and interpersonal interactions, the latter must be considered in light of a broader
picture, one of embodied and shared actions, coordination and purposeful and expressive com-
munication between young children and their companions (see Gratier & Trevarthen, 2008).
Furthermore, as Tomasello and Rakoczy (2003) explain, when babies and toddlers turn into
preschoolers (around ages 4–5), they move from shared intentionality to collective intentional-
ity, and begin to understand the interplay of multiple perspectives and standards from the sur-
rounding culture (Goodman & Tomasello, 2008). Joint action therefore takes on new forms and
gains new meanings. Unsurprisingly, this also coincides with the emergence of explicit forms of
mentalizing (see Slaughter, 2015) and with children’s growing awareness of the racial, ethnic
and cultural differences that permeate the social world (Nesdale, 2004).
Through processes of maturation, socialization and enculturation (Campbell, 2011), chil-
dren also internalize the meanings and values associated with musicking (Small, 1998) in their
surroundings, which, in turn, shapes their attitudes and behaviors. The communicative musi-
cality shared between babies and their companions (Malloch & Trevarthen, 2009), I would
argue, lays an important foundation for children’s later musicking. But a question that needs to
be asked is when and how music begins to be less about “itself ” (Malloch & Trevarthen, 2009)
and musicking less about child culture (Bjorkvold, 1992), becoming more constrained and in
accordance with the tenets of adult culture and aesthetics. For example, when and how in the
course of development does the distinction between presentational and participatory forms of
music making (Turino, 2008), that is blurred in early childhood (Young & Ilari, 2012), become
more evident?
34 Research Studies in Music Education 38(1)

An important force that has been known to affect conceptions of music and musicking in
early childhood is school (Bjorkvold, 1992). Formal schooling inducts children into wider
social norms by gradually differentiating local communities, cultures and traditions from the
social expectations that are governed by political and economic forces at local and global levels
(see Trevarthen et al., 2014). Opportunities for both play and musical play, for example, have
been stripped from many schools across the globe and replaced with activities that center on
productive work and observable actions towards the training of exceptional skills in specific
areas like numeracy and literacy (Bjorkvold, 1992). As an example, in a preschool that
advertised itself as “deeply committed to early artistic development”, I witnessed several music
classes that required children to stay seated in predetermined spaces for the duration of all
musical activities. Children were asked to imitate their teachers’ actions throughout the class,
while a playback dictated and reinforced the correct pitches and rhythms of the tune to be
learned. There was no room for movement, improvisation or personal expression. At the end
of the class, the teacher was overtly pleased by the discipline and self-regulation skills of her
students, who, in turn (and to my dismay), looked completely bored and disengaged. Obviously,
not all preschools are like this. But what this particular experience reveals is a myopic view of
early childhood music education that is not only counter to the ways that young children
learn, but also to the potential of music and musical play in children’s social, cultural and
emotional development. Over 20 years after the publication of Bjorkvold’s (1992) book in
English, his call for action continues to be important.
Political debates aside, other questions remain as regards music making and early forms of
altruism. Some have argued that it is the emotional “looseness” or “floating intentionality”
(Cross, 2014) of musical engagement that fosters a sense of togetherness within a temporal
framework, which in turn may lead to prosocial behaviors. Yet, as Reddish et al. (2013) con-
tend, “synchrony promotes cooperation more powerfully when it is framed as a collective goal”
(p. 9). This might be an alternative explanation as to why mixed results have been found in
studies that examined the effects of collective practices of formal music education on children’s
social competencies, empathy and prosociality. Many previous studies have not examined chil-
dren’s motivation to engage with music, cultural orientation and personality traits; therefore it
is possible that earlier findings were confounded by these important variables.
Moreover, if musicking is, indeed, as powerful as Small (1998) has led us to believe, it is cen-
tral to understand its role in children’s overall development. By shedding some light on the
pathways between the social and cultural worlds that are mediated by early musical interac-
tions, we may be able to answer many fundamental questions. For example, while musical
engagement in the early years has often been described as a form of its own (Bjorkvold, 1992;
Trevarthen et al., 2014), in what ways (if any) is it related to culture-specific forms of collective
music making, like singing or playing in groups later in life? Aside from formal schooling, what
other forces compel humans to move away from playful and collaborative forms of musicking
(e.g., musical play) to more rule-governed forms that conform to social and cultural norms? In
other words, when, how, and why do our conceptions of music become more constrained in the
course of human development? Likewise, how are delineated meanings of music constructed
(i.e., people–music associations in particular), as children’s social, cultural and musical worlds
expand beyond the family? To what extent do shared intentionality, mentalizing and joint
actions lay a foundation for collective musical experiences later in life? What is the role of emo-
tions in these processes? Are individuals who show enhanced rhythmic entrainment abilities
(in its temporal and affective dimensions) in the early years, more prosocial and empathetic
towards others? And if so, can early childhood music education contribute in any way to
change the social landscape? These are questions that merit our attention, as they not only
Ilari 35

have implications for music education practice and music scholarship in general, but also tell
us much about the human inclination to engage with music across different age groups, cul-
tures, geographical borders, and time.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-
profit sectors.

Note
1. The term coordination is used here because “movements between co-actors might be coupled in
either a synchronized or complementary fashion, in time or in space” (Phillips-Silver & Keller, 2012,
p. 2).

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Author biography
Beatriz Ilari is assistant professor of music education at the University of Southern California. Her main
research interests lie in the intersection between music, childhood, cognition, and culture. She is cur-
rently a research fellow at USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute and the editor of Perspectives: Journal of the
Early Childhood Music & Movement Association. Her research has appeared in important journals such as
the Journal of Research in Music Education, Research Studies in Music Education, Early Child Development and
Care, Frontiers in Psychology, and the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.