Powerful voices: Young children using spontaneous singing at home as an empowerment strategy

As young children find their place in the world, they interact with others to negotiate social order. Research shows that young children adopt strategies to empower themselves, influence others, and assert their autonomy. In this article, I examine ways in which 3- and 4-year-old children utilise spontaneous singing as an empowerment strategy. Audio data were collected through all-day recordings of 15 3-4-year-old children at home. Analysis using a sociological lens of musical agency revealed the children using singing as an agentic tool to empower themselves through exerting influence and resisting control. Although early childhood music education researchers have long been interested in musical interaction, themes of empowerment, resistance, influence, and control have not been thoroughly explored in relation to young children’s singing. Adopting a childhood studies perspective, this research contributes to a greater understanding of how young children negotiate everyday power relations and provides insight into their use of singing as a distinct mode of communication.