Young Children’s Musical Identities

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores the relationships between young children’s musical development and identities in this rapidly changing, diverse, and increasingly globalized world. Children use music in a range of ways right from birth: it plays emotional, cognitive, and social roles in their lives. Music therefore contributes to children’s development across domains, including their emerging individual and social identities. The relationship between musical identity and development is reciprocal, as the ways in which children experience and “do” music are influenced by the musical cultures and identities of those around them—in their families, neighborhoods, early childhood and other community settings, and the wider world beyond, including the digital world. Their musical worlds are influenced by many factors and are thus complex and diverse. With this complexity in mind, ecological systems theory, as well as sociological, anthropological, and ethnomusicological literature, informs this chapter.