Just by Listening to Her
An Investigation of Sofia’s Self-Initiated Musical Play at Home
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22420646 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Maria Papazachariou-Christoforou (0000-0001-6256-5451, European University Cyprus, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-22 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Early Childhood Education Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1082-3301 • E-ISSN: 1573-1707 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s10643-026-02267-9 |
| OpenAlex | W7165565652 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 59 |
Young children’s self-initiated musical play includes innumerable forms of musical praxes and appears as a fluid, multimodal, contextual, playful activity embedded in their everyday life. Music making as a participatory social action and as a tool of agency provides young children with multi-dimensional affordances of experiencing the world and facilitating the development of their identity. Aiming to contribute to research on the affordances of music making in early years, this case study about a 28-month-old girl from Greece focused on two questions that framed the research: (1) What constitutes Sofia’s self-initiated musical play in the home setting, and how does her musical play intersect with her daily life at home? and (2) Why does Sofia engage in musical play in the home setting? The data included parent-maintained video recordings, diaries of Sofia’s music engagement, and interviews with parents. Emergent themes from the data were that Sofia’s musical play was complex and integrated in her everyday life for various functions, including as a way to manifest herself in the family setting and as a means of exploring and caring for herself. Implications of the study relate to parents/guardians and educators in the field of early childhood music education.
Active listening · Affordance · Everyday life · Music education · Musical · Musical Development · Diverse Music Education Insights · Early Childhood Education and Development · Neuroscience and Music Perception
Music in Everyday Life
Children's playful musicking
Through a baby’s ears
Sounding Lives in and Through Music
It takes two to tango
Musical play in the early years
Young Children’s Interactions With Sound-Producing Objects
The Active Musical Room
Singing Practices in 10 Families with Young Children
Music in Early Childhood
| Highly cited | No |
|---|