THE SONGS WE SING TO OUR CHILDREN

what do they say?

Abstract

This article focuses on the themes of the songs that we sing to young children, in an attempt to explore their contents, trying to identify both concepts of childhood and social values embedded in them. To that aim, we use two sources in our analyses: a questionnaire filled out by ten teachers, inquiring about their (and their children’s) musical preferences and use in the activity room; a survey of songs in collections, CDs and books of children’s songs, identifying genres and selecting a small sample for further analysis. Results show a difference between the traditional songs, which see the child as “an adult in the making” and the contemporary songs, which allow more room for the child to be a child, that is, the latter ones tend to value a childhood culture that is different from an adult culture.