CALL 2028 - 1

Music in Early Childhood Education and Care: Cultural Learning, Professional Knowledge and Educational Practice

Special Issue of RELAdEI – Revista Latinoamericana de Educación Infantil
Vol. 17, No. 1 (2028)

Music is a significant yet still underestimated dimension of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). Musical experiences in nurseries, kindergartens and preschools extend beyond singing activities, celebrations or entertainment. Through voice, rhythm, movement, listening, musical play and collective participation, children engage in forms of communication, expression, cultural learning and meaning-making that involve cognitive, linguistic, emotional, social and bodily dimensions of development.

At the same time, music is part of children’s own cultural worlds. Songs, nursery rhymes, playground games, popular music, family repertoires and contemporary media cultures provide children with opportunities to create, transform and transmit musical practices, negotiate identities and participate in peer and community cultures. Music may also provide particularly valuable spaces for communication, belonging and participation in multilingual, intercultural and inclusive educational contexts.

These perspectives raise important questions for ECEC professionals and institutions. Although music is widely present in everyday educational practice, educators do not always receive sufficient preparation to design intentional and developmentally appropriate musical experiences. Music therefore needs to be considered not only in relation to child development, but also as a domain of professional knowledge, pedagogical intentionality, cultural responsibility and children’s agency.

This Special Issue of RELAdEI invites empirical, theoretical, historical, comparative and practice-based contributions exploring the place of music in contemporary Early Childhood Education and Care. Contributions from different disciplinary perspectives and educational contexts are particularly welcome.

Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• music as a language of childhood;
• musical play, rhythm, movement and embodied learning;
• music, language and communication;
• music, cognition, self-regulation and executive functions;
• music, emotion, wellbeing and social participation;
• children’s musical cultures, playground repertoires and oral traditions;
• nursery rhymes, clapping games, counting-out chants and peer musical practices;
• popular music, media culture and children’s musical creativity;
• music, inclusion and multilingual educational contexts;
• migration, intercultural communication and musical participation;
• music as cultural heritage and intergenerational transmission;
• children’s musical agency and participation;
• educators’ professional knowledge, beliefs and self-efficacy in music education;
• initial teacher education and continuing professional development;
• curriculum design and pedagogical intentionality in musical activities;
• observation, documentation and assessment of musical experiences;
• comparative and intercultural perspectives on early childhood music education;
• music education policies and the institutional place of music within ECEC systems.

The Special Issue particularly encourages contributions that bridge research and educational practice and critically examine the developmental, pedagogical, cultural and professional implications of music in ECEC.

Submission and publication

Submission deadline: 30 April 2027
Expected publication: RELAdEI, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2028)

Manuscripts should be submitted through the RELAdEI online submission system and will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process. Authors should follow the journal’s submission and formatting guidelines.

Guest Editors

Andrea Lupi
University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Italy

Marta Kondracka-Szala
University of Wrocław, Poland