Musical Engagement With Young Children Experiencing Homelessness: An Exploratory Study

It has been shown that children who experience homelessness face risks and circumstances that differ from other children (Bassuk, Richard, & Tsertsvadze, 2015; Sandel et al., 2018); however, there is a lack of documentation of music education programs that specifically serve children who are experiencing homelessness and a lack of research on the effects of such programs. The purpose of this exploratory study was to understand whether meaning arises for young children who are experiencing homelessness and their teachers from weekly music classes. Children ages 3 months through 3 years ( N = 36) who attended a preschool for children experiencing homelessness participated in music classes that centered on serve-and-return musical interactions. Data showed that (a) the children’s responses to music classes strengthened over the course of 7 weeks, and the majority of the children were interacting with music and their music teachers periodically or consistently by the end of the sessions; (b) children incorporated music class material into other parts of their days and with adults other than their music teachers; (c) classroom teachers changed the ways that they engaged musically with the children; (d) teachers recognized new types of vocalizations as musical; and (e) the infant teachers encouraged and participated in more serve-and-return musical interactions. It was concluded that the children’s responses were consistent with previous research on housed children, they found musical and social meaning within the musical interactions, and the classroom teachers found meaning in the musical material and, therefore, extended its use within their classrooms.