Inquiring Into Children’s Music Experiences: Groundings in Literature

Abstract

Highlighting various seminal studies in music education provides grounding for the necessity of connecting children’s school music experiences with their daily lived music experiences. Allowing children to make more seamless connections between these two contexts heightens the possibility of creating increasingly meaningful school music experiences. The review of literature in children’s nonguided music experiences and ethnographic-centered research contextualizes this prominent issue within the field of music education. Such research affirms the importance of attending to children’s experiences as a means of comprehending how children’s perspectives may be a central catalyst in shaping elementary school music curricula. The varied literature showed the clear need for continued inquiry within the field of music education that investigates children’s music experiences in their daily lives.