The concept of participation in educational research comprises a complex field which involves issues of democracy, children’s rights and inclusion in schools, and it is a field “in search of definition” (Percy-Smith & Thomas, 2010, p. 1). Although there is no unifying definition of children’s participation, most definitions contain the elements of the child as a subject or agent, engaging with others around tasks or issues of concern to them (Malone & Hartung, 2010, p. 27). Drawing on Bae’s (2009) notion of mutual recognition, emphasising that “partners in interactions are of equal worth” (Bae, 2009, p. 397), leads the attention to how to create mutual conditions for everybody’s participation in joint activities. In a Norwegian context, although building a safe learning environment for everybody is not a specific part of a particular subject, it is clearly articulated in the Education Act, (1998, § 9 A-2) and in the overall part of the curriculum (Udir, 2017). Hence, in this study, participation is understood as linked to the three perspectives, the student, interactions with others, and what they do to collaborate in “shared learning experiences” (Booth & Ainscow, 2002, p. 3). Further, in their “framework for participation”, Florian et al. (2017) refer to how students’ participation is linked to the dimensions of access, collaboration, achievements and recognition and acceptance of all students, by students and teachers in a way that fosters a sense of belonging to the class as a learning community (Florian et al., 2017, p. 54). This paper reports on teacher-student interactions’ role in promoting students’ participation in singing as a joint start-up routine in a 5^th grade classroom. The main objective is on exploring why and how the students participate in classroom singing when the activity is conducted as a joint start-up routine. The purpose of the article is to gain insight about the role of the students’ and the teacher’s participation in a joint activity. Conducting singing activity as a routine at the beginning of the day may imply that the content and the form of singing promote students’ participation, since routines consist of both “structure and agency” (Feldman & Pentland, 2003, p. 95). In this way, conducting singing as a classroom activity might reinforce relationships (Savage et al., 2021, p. 2) and contribute to shape a learning environment where every student can belong, since “participation is part of belonging” (Lansdown, 2010, p. 11). Further, Savage (2021) argues that human musicality is a coevolved system for social bonding, where the phrase “social bonding refers to the formation, strengthening, and maintenance of affiliative connections” (Savage et al., 2021, p. 2) that brings forth the bonded relationships that underpin prosocial behaviour. As such, musical activities like group singing can enhance students prosocial behaviours towards others as well as their social inclusion in school (Barrett et al., 2019). To investigate the students’ and the teacher’s participation in singing as a start-up routine, the following research questions will be answered: How can the teacher’s and students’ participation in the singing activity be described, and how can the descriptions contribute to increased understanding about the appearance and significance of participation in the joint activity?

The exploration of the students’ and the teacher’s participation in singing as a start-up routine in a primary classroom draws from data within a larger eight-week case study (Stake, 1995) in a 5th grade classroom in a Norwegian school. The data construction is based on observations of 25 lessons, three interviews with the teacher, a focus group interview with students, and a video recording of a lesson in the classroom. The field notes were written each day throughout the entire eight-week case study during the lessons without discussing the experience with anyone else, to avoid diluting memory. The teacher interviews were semi-structured (Brinkmann, 2018, p. 1002), following the three-interview series (Seidman, 2006, p. 16) to get rich and in-depth information regarding the teachers’ view and experiences with participating in the singing activity. The focus group interview used open questions allowing the researcher to take on the role of a moderator. Audio- and video recordings enabled facial expressions and body language to become an integrated part of student interactions and meaning construction. The video recording of the singing activity was viewed several times and led to the construction of a narrative and a point-to-point analysis following a timeline spanning every ten seconds. The field notes and the interviews with the teacher and the students were analysed following a reflective thematic analytical approach (Braun & Clarke, 2022).

The significance of participation in the joint activity is connected to the students’ possibilities to suggest songs and to choose how they participate in the activity as well as the teachers’ support and recognition of their contributions. When the students engage in the singing activity as a start-up routine, they are encouraged to participate in ways that they are comfortable with. Most students listen and follow the lyrics on the screen while some of them sing along, others follow the rhythm nodding their head, waving their feet, or they beat the rhythm with their fingers or hands on their desk. All the different ways of participation is recognised as legitimate by the teacher and the peers, and yet, when the teacher stands still and sings along with the students, more students sing along, as if her participation promotes the students participation as well. Further, during the focus group interview, the students suddenly started to sing together, interpreted as an expression of them feeling safe, trusting each other, and that the song had become a part of their shared repertoire within the culture of the class. Conducting the singing activity as a joint start-up routine may be understood as a familiar space for the teacher and the students, participating together with a shared focus of what the teacher calls “a sense of being US”. In this way, the teachers’ support in recognising and promoting the students different ways of participating in singing as a start-up routine may be understood as an approach that supports cultivating fellowship.

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