Early years classes can have a wide-ranging mix of representation. Whether through emigration or asylum, the different languages and heritages represented in groups has made diversity an aspect of life that is here to stay. History shows us that maintaining boundaries and division only increases separation and greater feelings of “us” and “them”, but sharing cultures and customs increases bonds of compassion, understanding and friendship. We know that music unites within groups, and there is now evidence that music with children can unite across groups, too.

In comparison with other EU countries, the UK has the fourth largest number of asylum applications, which works out to only 8% of all applicants applying for asylum to all of the EU, EEA and Switzerland. Countries with more applications than the UK include Germany, France, Spain and Italy. The UN Refugee Agency UK (UNHCR, 2022) states that the highest nationalities claiming asylum in the UK in 2021 were from Iran, followed by Eritrea, Albania, Iraq and Syria. The current unrest between Russia and Ukraine will already be making an impact on these statistics.

A study in another city affected by conflict was published in 2021 (Hefer & Gluschankof, 2021). The authors considered the experience of parental participation in early years music classes where participants were Palestinian and Jewish. After running the sessions, videos were made, diaries maintained, and interviews held towards understanding why these parents had chosen music classes, what their experience was during the sessions, and how the family experienced music at home. The results found that participants had positive attitudes to the “other”, and that they did not observe prejudice against their children, indicating that music was able to reduce stereotyping. This also suggests that their children may not develop negative stereotypes because they may not be exposed to negativity, despite being members of societies that hold systemic ethnic biases.

Back in the UK, presenting music in multicultural situations can become a challenge of “them” teaching “us,” or “us” teaching “them”. This can become even more challenging with musical differences within cultures, as we get used to familiar sounds of our culture early on. Interestingly, the song Frère Jacques has been used in multiple ways and used in multiple languages. In fact, there is a website of the different ways that students and teachers from other countries sing the song: http://demonsaumonde.free.fr/frere.jacques/index.html.

Mama Lisa (https://www.mamalisa.com/) specialises in a number of free-to-access songs from around the world. Often there are links to You Tube recordings or even audio recordings to better understand how to pronounce the different languages.

“We have collections of a lot of songs that are sung around the world, including Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. I think it’s a great way to introduce kids (and adults) to other languages since they already know the tunes. I did this for my daughter’s Girl Scout troop when she was younger (she’s now 20 and in college). Kids love to try to pronounce different languages.” Lisa, from Mama Lisa.

To celebrate this approach to multiculturalism, there are links below to the Persian, Tingrinya, Albanian, Kurdish and Arabic versions of Frère Jacques, with a bonus version in Urdu from Pakistan! (https://www.mamalisa.com/?t=e_family&c=55 will take you to Mama Lisa’s page of different versions of Frère Jacques around the world.)

References:

Hefer, M., & Gluschankof, C. (2021). Building a future through multicultural early childhood music classes in a conflict-affected city. International Journal of Music in Early Childhood, 16(1), 71–87. https://doi.org/10.1386/ijmec_00028_1

UNHCR. (2022). United Nations Refugee Agency UK. https://www.unhcr.org/uk/asylum-in-the-uk.html