Maria Wassrin lägger fram texten:

Creating a public sphere in preschool through Musicking

This paper explores the possibility to conceive the subject of music in preschool as ways of creating a public sphere with the youngest human beings in society. The discussion of the topic follows the trajectory from Christopher Small’s theorizing on music as action; musicking (Small, 1998), to Hanna Arendt’s (1958) definition of the public sphere as a place where freedom may appear through political action. The argumentation is also closely linked to an empirical example from a Swedish preschool and their music activities with their 1-3 year olds. The empirical material shows that the children and the music pedagogues co-construct a public sphere through an explicitly improvisational way. As the children’s contributions are essential to the emerging event, it is argued that they can be seen as fully legitimized citizens here and now and not in a distant future when being fully educated citizens as grown-ups. Further it is argued that musicking, as it is performed in the specific preschool context, is a mode where the youngest children have the opportunity to let their unique voices be heard in the form of bodily expressions. The paper will contribute to the body of knowledge within the fields of early childhood education and music education, with theory concerning children as contributors in the process of transforming music activities in preschool towards the child’s perspective. In extension it can be argued that children also can be seen as contributors to new constructions and understandings of our common world even outside preschool. This may in turn contribute to the perception of children as essential to our common searching of Utopia, or the good life.

Key words: Musicking, early childhood education, music education, citizenship, Arendt.

Läsare är Maria Olson.

För information och textdistribution kontakta Maria Wassrin, maria.wassrin@cehum.su.se