Powerful Play: The potential of professional development in musical play to support early years teachers' music education

In the Netherlands and many other parts of the world, music education can be characterized as predominantly teacher directed and focusing on group-based singing, instrumental music making and moving to music. This interpretation of music education seems to be largely based on a dominant Eurocentric concept of musical talent that equates musicality with having musical performance skills, a concept that negatively affects many people's musical confidence, including that of teachers. It is therefore not surprising that a large body of research reports on generalist teachers feeling incompetent to teach music. With respect to early childhood education, musical play, - a form of music education in which children freely play with sound and music-, is a powerful context for young children to learn about music in more personally meaningful ways and more consistent with the way they learn. To facilitate musical play, teachers do not necessarily need any specific high-level musical performance skills, a characteristic that might reduce their uncertainties about teaching music. This dissertation focuses on raising awareness of the potential of musical play in early years music education, and on exploring the extent to which it contributes to early years teachers’ ability and self-confidence to teach music. More specifically, it explores the impact of professional development in musical play on teachers’ efficacy for music education. It aims to answer the following overarching research question: To what extent and under which conditions can musical play be implemented in early years education? Outcomes of four studies show that generalist early years classroom teachers, following professional development, are able to facilitate and guide musical play. In evaluating our research, working with musical play appeared to have had positive effects on teachers’ teacher efficacy for musical play and for half of them for their teacher efficacy for music education in general. A deeper analysis of an individual teacher’s experiences revealed how applying musical play had led to a positive change in her music teacher identity. Teachers’ long-term sustainment of musical play was found to be dependent on management support, existing team-based lesson preparation routines and in particular, the extent to which school curricula are play-oriented.