Turkish immigrant parents’ perceptions and practices : The role of music in bilingual language acquisition

Research shows that parents play an essential role in their children’s musical and language development. Based on language related issues of Turkish immigrants in Germany and similarities between neuro-cognitive music and language processing, the present study focuses especially on three crucial issues: 1. What are the Turkish immigrant parents’ understandings from early childhood music education and bilingualism? 2. How do the Turkish immigrant parents perceive the benefits of music education in language acquisition process? 3. How can Turkish families be encouraged to incorporate music-language exercises into their everyday life? The present multiple case study applies various interview techniques and forms of systematic observation to generate qualitative data about the parents’ perceptions of and attitudes towards educational and developmental processes, social behaviour and self-concepts, bilingualism and flexibility in verbal expression as well as complex benefits of music education representing a main focus of interest. First findings from piloting encounters and main interviews demonstrate the high impact of cultural habits and socio-demographic backgrounds on the participants’ decisions about styles and modes of music education and language training. These findings will be presented along with suggestions about how to apply them to the music-language exercises. Comparative studies involving these present and previous investigations are expected to yield crucial insights into complex conditions of lingual respectively bicultural learning environments