Children's construction of musical knowledge in early school

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how the sociocultural and musical context influence children's construction of musical knowledge. The study focused on: (a) the mediational process by tools and people in construction of musical knowledge, (b) the contextual and situational factors that constrain children's musical knowledge development, and (c) the musical knowledge children developed in their musical activity settings.; This study explored particularly rich musical settings that included three elementary schools, three music teachers, six music classrooms (two kindergarten, two first grades, and two second grades), and a professional community orchestra education program, The Arts in Community Education Project (ACE). The study attempted to integrate all the possible musical and sociocultural factors in the schools' six major musical activity settings: (a) the music class activity, (b) the classroom musical activity, (c) the school arts project, (d) the ACE ensemble visit, (e) the ACE concert, and (f) the ACE festival.; The three findings of the study are as follows. First, the process of musical knowledge construction was mediated by tools and other people. The musical learning of children was enhanced by cultural constraints, such as enactive movements, iconic devices, devised materials, and social constraints, such as interaction with teachers and peers. The current study indicates the construction of musical knowledge is especially enhanced by the interplay of the mediational tools, the teacher's scaffolding, and the collaborative effort of peers.; Second, the students developed shared frameworks for interpreting musical experiences, whereas their own was mediated by musical activities.; Third, musical learning and development proved to be domain-specific rather than domain-general. The construction of musical knowledge depended on accessibility of and familiarity with the specific musical repertoire rather than general physical or cognitive constraints. The children's domain specific knowledge was facilitated by a better understanding of the musical repertoire by: (a) the use of mediational tools, (b) in-depth study of a limited repertoire, and (c) an interconnection across the musical activity setting. The children's musical knowledge in the three schools flourished.