Children's playful musicking: Peer culture within a day-care setting in Singapore

Abstract

In the field of early childhood education, play has become synonymous with curriculum but is sometimes viewed narrowly as a pedagogical tool to enhance child development. However, it is known from a range of multidisciplinary work that child-initiated and child-guided forms and contexts of playing can offer rich insight into diversity in childhood(s), peer cultures and children's meaning-making. This article draws on an ethnographic study that was conducted in a full-day childcare centre in Singapore and focused on children's everyday world of self-initiated play, improvisation and peer culture. Specifically, it presents examples of songs and rhythmic chants created by a group of 4-year-olds . Such ‘musicking’ is a form of social play that illustrates children’s ways of teasing, relating with others and sense-making within their contemporary social world. The article argues for educators to look beyond the instrumental value of play in the preschool curriculum, inviting all to take some time to allow children's multifarious play activities to influence their adult sensibilities.

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