Music preferences of migrant children at the end of the primary school education

Author(s):

Winfried Sakai

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

20. Research in Innovative Intercultural Learning Environments

Format:

Paper

Session Information

20 SES 04, Methodology (Part 2)

Paper Session, continuing from 20 SES 03

Time:

2009-09-28

16:00-17:30

Room:

JUR, HS 14

Chair:

Maria-Àngels Subirats

Contribution

Does the global mainstream fade over the family culture background? In educational literature, a picture is often drawn of migrant children to have exclusively family-culture-orientated music tastes. Thus, the teacher would be required to build up bridges between assumed “home country” and “host country tastes” (comp. Hammel 2007). Although there has been a change of paradigm in intercultural research to a more transcultural view, there is little information regarding the music preferences of children actually living in diaspora. On the other hand, there are numerous indications of the increasing effects of global media and global popular music on childhood and children’s tastes as (for instance) Keith Negus’ points out in his remarks on “media imperialism” in his “Popular Music Theory” and Robert Burnett’s description of a “Global Jukebox”. As a theoretical framework, this project leans initially on Appadurai’s five dimensions of cultural flow: ethnoscapes, technoscapes, financescapes, mediascapes and ideoscapes. The subject of this research is the music preferences of children with a Turkish family background living in the German city Ludwigshafen/Rhein in Rheinland-Pfalz, attending the last class of primary school (age 10). They are asked to record their preferences by handling a laptop, offering a sample selection of significant music examples. The selection is based on the audible and theoretical differences between oriental and occidental music tone systems (ref. Reinhard/Reinhard 1984a/b). A context-data questionnaire will complete the data-collection (e.g. using media: Granato 2001). The basic question is: will Turkish migrant children (‘ethnoscapes’) respond primarily to authentic Turkish music pieces and/or pop songs with traces of oriental music, or will they follow global music taste (‘mediascapes’)?

Method

There are three instruments used for data-collection: (1) Handling specially designed and self-programmed interactive software (installed on a laptop), the child can rate twelve songs from a categorized song list. By pushing one of five rating buttons the song will be “deleted”, “stopped”, “faded out”, “continued” or “played twice”. By making his choice the child gets an immediate reaction and may create his individual music program according to music preferences (uses & gratification, North/Hargreaves 2008: 225f). The software will record the time the child spends with each song (ratio scale). (2) In a next step, the child will record context-data (socio-economical, cultural background etc.) by using the software-integrated questionnaire. (3) Additionally, there will be a printed questionnaire for the parents, concerning context related data. The music examples are categorized in a two-dimensional array: global, German and Turkish music vs. male pop, female pop, folk/traditional and educational children song.

Expected Outcomes

By statistic analyses of the recorded times spend with each song it is expected to identify clusters of preferences. The context data will then be further analyzed for inherent indications, which is to say possible means of predicting these preferences from media uses, cultural and bilingual background (by logistic regression). It will be innovative to know which of these influences on children of migrant families proves to be stronger: the cultural background of the family, or the influences of global musical taste. The influence of age and gender will be taken into account (evidence for gender specific tastes in Gembris/Schellberg 2007). The project has an effective European scope in that the research question refers to all European education systems where immigrant children are educated in the area of music and arts.

References

Appadurai, Arjun 1990: Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy. In Appadurai, Arjun 1996/2008: Modernity at Large. Minneapolis/ London: University of Minnesota Behne, Klaus Ernst 1997: III. Musikalische Urteilsbildung. In Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (MGG). Sachteil; Bd. 6, Meis-Mus, S. 998 1011. Kassel: Bärenreiter Block, Liesbeth de/ Buckingham, David 2007: Global children, global media. Migration, Media and Childhood. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 6XS, England: Palgrave Macmillan Burnett, Robert 1996: The Global Jukebox. The international music industry. London/ New York: Routledge Gembris, Heiner/ Schellberg, Gabriele 2007: Die Offenohrigkeit und ihr Verschwinden bei Kindern im Grundschulalter. In Auhagen, Wolfgang et al. 2007: Musikalische Sozialisation im Kindes- und Jugendalter. Bd. 19 in der Reihe: Musikpsychologie. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Musikpsychologie. Göttingen: Hogrefe Gogolin, Ingrid/ Krüger-Potratz, Marianne 2006: Einführung in die Interkulturelle Pädagogik. Opladen: Barbara Budrich Granato, M. 2001: Freizeitgestaltung und Mediennutzung bei Kindern türkischer Herkunft. Eine Untersuchung des Presse- und Informationsamtes der Bundesregierung (BPA) zur ‚Mediennutzung und Integration der türkischen Bevölkerung in Deutschland’ und der ‚Mediennutzung und Integration türkischer Kinder 2000 in Deutschland’, Bonn: BPA Greve, Martin 1995: Die Europäisierung orientalischer Kunstmusik in der Türkei. Europäische Hochschulschriften, Reihe 36: Musikwissenschaft Vol. 142. Frankfurt: Peter Lang Hammel, Lina 2007: Der Kulturbegriff im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs und seine Bedeutung für die Musikpädagogik. Versuch eines Literaturberichts. In Zeitschrift für Kritische Musikpädagogik (http://www.zfkm.org/) herausgegeben von Jürgen Vogt. Elektronischer Artikel: http://home.arcor.de/zfkm/07-hammel1.pdf [17.08.2008] Negus, Keith 1999/2008: Popular Music Theory. An Introduction. Cambridge, UK: Polity North, Adrian C./ Hargreaves, David J. 2008: The Social and Applied Psychology of Music. Oxford: University Press Reinhard, Kurt/ Reinhard, Ursula 1984a: Musik der Türkei. Band 1: Die Kunstmusik. Bd. 95 in der Reihe Taschenbücher zur Musikwissenschaft (Herausgegeben von Richard Schaal). Wilhelmshaven: Heinrichshofen’s Reinhard, Kurt/ Reinhard, Ursula 1984b: Musik der Türkei. Band 2: Die Volksmusik. Bd. 96 in der Reihe Taschenbücher zur Musikwissenschaft (Herausgegeben von Richard Schaal). Wilhelmshaven: Heinrichshofen’s

Author Information

Winfried Sakai

Uni-Hamburg

Erziehungswissenschaft

Mannheim

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