Exploring Chinese American Immigrant Children's Musical Cultures and Musical Identities: A Multiple Case Study
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Xie, Xin
- Graduate Program:
- Music Education
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 06, 2024
- Committee Members:
- Charles Youmans, Outside Field Member
Linda Thornton, Chair of Committee
Allison Henward, Outside Unit Member
Sarah Watts, Co-Chair & Dissertation Advisor
Ann Marie Stanley, Program Head/Chair - Keywords:
- Music Identity
Chinese American Immigrant Children
Children Music Culture
Music Engagement - Abstract:
- This qualitative multiple-case study aims to explore the musical lives, culture, and musical identities of Chinese American immigrant children. Drawing on Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, this study focuses on four Chinese American immigrant children’s engagement and interaction within a sociocultural environment, and on understanding how immigrant children construct or reimagine their musical selves through early music engagement. The guiding research questions are: (1) What characterizes Chinese American children's musical engagement and musical lives? (2) How do social, cultural, historical, and political influences on musical engagement shape the musical identities of Chinese American children? Data collection occurred over twelve weeks and included interviews with children, parents, classroom teachers, and the director, as well as observations during the school day. Additional resources for analysis included drawings with prompts and photos and videos collected by the researcher and parents. The data analysis comprises two processes: within-case analysis and cross-case analysis, to gain an in-depth understanding of each participant and to compare the cases. Findings reveal that children articulate their musical identities through a diverse spectrum of musical cultures, encompassing a wide repertoire that transcends binary distinctions between host and family cultures. Sociocultural factors within children’s ecological systems influence their musical identity construction across microsystem to macrosystem levels. Parents, siblings, and technology devices from the intimate environment play the most influential roles, particularly reflecting parents’ cultural capital, Chinese Confucianism, and parenting values and styles. Implications were discussed for teaching music to children with bicultural backgrounds that differ from the mainstream school culture, and recommendations were made for parents to respect and support children’s rich musical cultures and overlapping bicultural identities.