Building a Profile of Australian Parents’ Musical Beliefs, Values, and Practices

Understanding the musical beliefs, values, and practices of parents provides insight into how children experience music in early childhood. This chapter presents a profile of parents enrolled in a longitudinal investigation of Australian families. Strand 1 families attended a Music Early Learning Program (MELP) while Strand 2 families did not. Parents’ musical beliefs, values, and music participation and engagement practices in everyday parenting including music in the home were sought through survey. Parent profiles identify mature-aged, well-educated adults in stable relationships with stable incomes, who were musically experienced. Many had music training in their childhood and/or engaged in music-making throughout their schooling. All parents valued music and reported that they used music almost daily for both personal and family use with their children to create calm, to relax, to re-energize, and to have fun. Emerging themes are identified and considered based on the resulting profile data.