With the intent of informing early childhood music educators in their work with parents and their young children, the purpose of this study is to explore how parents engage in musical parenting and how that parenting is shaped by participation in early childhood music classes. The "grand tour" question guiding this study was how does participation in early childhood music classes shape participants' musical parenting? In addition to this overarching question, I address the following sub questions: (1) What do participants already know, believe, and do with music prior to their participation in music classes? (2) What kind of musical home environment do parents provide for their toddlers? (3) How do parents engage in musical activities during early childhood music classes? (4) What activities or ideas from early childhood music classes, if any, do parents value and enjoy? (5) What knowledge, skills, or information do parents gain from participating in early childhood music classes with their toddler that translate to changes in their musical parenting behaviors outside of class?This instrumental case study examined the phenomenon of parent learning in early childhood music classes and how that learning shaped participants' musical parenting. Three mothers who were attending an early childhood music class with their toddlers for the first time acted as participants. Participants enrolled in music classes through a partnership between the early childhood music program and an early intervention organization. As a participant observer, I employed ethnographic techniques for data collection through recording and writing fieldnotes during weekly music classes in which I acted as an assistant and through three visits to families' homes. During home visits, I completed semi-structured interviews and both participated in and observed music-making with parents and children. Each parent wrote weekly journal entries in which they shared examples of musical interactions they had with their children.Parents regularly engaged in music making and listening with their children prior to enrolling in music class. Families incorporated listening, singing, and movement into their play, daily routines, and traditions. For some, technology and media contributed significantly to their overall musical home environment. Participants' affiliation with the early intervention organization along with their beliefs about music participation and their personal music experiences motivated them to enroll in classes primarily with extramusical goals in mind. All of the mothers in this study focused almost entirely on their child's experiences in music class rather than their own. Parents were not motivated to participate in music classes to enhance their own musical parenting, and they struggled to articulate goals for their own participation in class. Their engagement in classes suggested that they thought of their role as one of encouraging their child's participation and facilitating children's enjoyment.After participating in music class, parents easily identified shifts in their child's musical behaviors at home and felt that they accomplished some or all of the goals established for their class experience. Although parents sometimes were hesitant to identify things that they learned or changes in their own behavior, parent learning and growth in music class contributed to changes in their musical parenting. Some of these shifts in parental musical engagement with their children were acknowledged by participants, while other changes were unconscious and seemed to be the result of informal learning that took place during music class. From these findings, I share implications for early childhood music teaching settings as well as recommendations for future research.
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