Socializing Enchantment: a socio-anthropological approach to infant-directed singing, music education and cultural socialization

Albert Doja (1)

1 Université de Lille

In the standard traditions of both folklore studies and child psychology, descriptive and empirical research has only confirmed that lullabies and play songs are either a part of children's lore or a means of caregiving. In this paper I show how and why a socio-anthropological analysis of infant-directed singing, including ideas and themes represented in sleeping and waking songs, can provide fresh insights to grasp the social and cultural environment for their formal components, their performance features, and their semantic and functional aspects. Methodologically, a new picture of actors' practice must arise if we consider lullabies and play songs within an analytical context where they become an important instance of both music education and the symbolic structuration of cultural socialization.

Mots clés: education; child psychology; anthropology; sociology; ethnomusicology; rocking; play song; music; lullaby; cradle song; socialization; Albania

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie; Musique, musicologie et arts de la scène; Psychologie; Sociologie; Education

Albert Doja. Socializing Enchantment: a socio-anthropological approach to infant-directed singing, music education and cultural socialization. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 2014, 45 (1), pp.115-147. ⟨halshs-01018755⟩