‘Sounds good to me’: Canadian children's perceptions of popular music

Abstract

This cross-sectional study explored the role of age and socioeconomic status (SES) in relation to children's popular musical preferences. As part of a larger, multi-method, longitudinal study on children's and adolescents’ self-views and media preference, the present study investigated the popular music section of a self-report questionnaire. Data was gathered in four Canadian schools (two mid-low SES, two mid-high SES), and completed by 168 school-aged children from Grades 1, 4 and 6, with an approximately equal number of girls and boys in each grade. Results suggest that music is important to children, and that across ages and socioeconomic status, the majority of children shared common preferences concerning popular music types, the most common being pop and rock, followed by hip-hop and rap. In response to questions regarding their interpretation of favorite songs, children's rationale reflected their developmental level of understanding. Results are discussed in terms of educational and clinical programs that promote critical media literacy.

Acknowledgments

We are most grateful to our co-investigators of the larger, longitudinal study from which this research is based upon (Anne Elliott (PI)) including Vera Woloshyn and Merle Richards. We are also most grateful to the following research assistants for their valuable help with data collection and analysis: Spogmai Akseer, Mira Bajovic, Mandy Frake, David Guzda, Kelly Powick, Mingzhu Qiu, and Amanda Varnish. We also thank the school staff, students and parents involved in our study. Finally, we thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant #410-2001-0853) for their partial support of this study.