The ability to forgo an immediate reward and wait for a larger reward delayed in time is known as delay of gratification (Mischel & Underwood, 1974). In pre-school children, delay of gratification provides a simple measure of self-control and self-regulation. Interestingly, the ability of pre-school children to delay gratification is predictive of a range of life outcomes that extend well beyond the pre-school years. For example, pre-school children that are better able to cope with a delay cope better in stressful and frustrating situations during adolescence (Mischel, Shoda & Peake, 1988; Shoda, Mischel & Peake, 1990). Further, Casey and colleagues (2011) demonstrated that children who have difficulty delaying gratification at age 4 have difficulty resisting temptations and displaying cognitive control in adulthood. With respect to life outcomes, difficulty in delaying gratification in childhood is correlated with poorer cardiovascular, respiratory, dental and sexual health (Moffitt et al., 2011), a higher body mass index (Schlam et al., 2013), increased aggression (Ayduk et al., 2007), criminal offenses (Moffitt et al., 2011), substance abuse (Madden et al., 1997), and lower self-esteem, academic achievement (Li-Grining, 2007; Mischel, Shoda & Rodriguez, 1989; Wulfert et al., 2002) and social skills (McIntyre, Blacher & Baker, 2006) in adulthood. Given its predictive nature, improving the ability of children to delay gratification has a number of potential benefits.
Metcalfe & Mischel (1999) proposed a theoretical framework to explain why some children are capable of delaying gratification while others are not. In this framework, two distinct but interacting systems underlie the ability of children to delay. The “cool” or cognitive system is responsible for thought and reflection. This system allows the individual to reflect on the options at hand and select the one that best serves their long-term interests. The “hot” or emotional system is characterized by quick emotional processing and satisfying immediate needs. For example, in the delay-of-gratification maintenance paradigm (Mischel, Shoda & Rodriguez, 1989), the child is presented with an object they desire (e.g., a marshmallow), which is highly salient and activates the “hot” system, pushing children toward the immediately gratifying response of grabbing the marshmallow. On the other hand, the “cool” system allows children to reflect on the fact that, if they want to gain an even more desirable outcome (e.g., two marshmallows), they must wait. The balance between the “hot” and “cool” systems is thought to be an intrinsic trait, responsible for children’s differential performance on the delay-of-gratification tasks (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999).
Importantly, however, numerous external factors can be used to either increase or decrease a child’s ability to delay gratification. For example, increasing a child’s attention to the salient attributes of the immediate reward, such as looking directly at the reward or talking about it, results in shorter wait times (Mauro & Harris, 2000; Mischel & Underwood, 1974; Putnam, Spritz & Stifter, 2002), while distraction techniques such as covering up the reward or thinking of the reward in a non-consummatory fashion results in longer waiting times (Sethi et al., 2000). In addition to salience and attentional strategies, parental style and attachment also predict delay behaviour. The children of parents who have an authoritarian parenting style tend to delay gratification while those with permissive parents do not (Mauro & Harris, 2000). Maternal regulatory strategies, such as distraction, reasoning, bargaining, indirect and direct commands, also impact children’s performance, with distraction being the most effective strategy (Putnam, Spritz & Stifter, 2002).
Empirical research on the strategies and parenting styles that contribute to delay of gratification has been used to propose guidelines to improve self-control in childhood (Strayhorn Jr, 2002). One of these guidelines suggests modelling and fantasy rehearsal. Bandura & McClelland’s (1977) social learning theory posits that behaviour is learnt from the environment through observation. Models (e.g., parents) explicitly convey how tasks should be performed and, as a result, shorten how long it takes children to learn a task or skill. The model may be a live individual demonstrating a behaviour, a verbal description or explanation of a behaviour, or symbolic (i.e., the behaviour is modelled in a book, on television, or other media) (Bandura & McClelland, 1977). A number of factors contribute to the influence of models on children’s behaviour. For example, the more the child identifies with the model, the more likely they are to reproduce the behaviour (Bandura & McClelland, 1977).
Bandura & Mischel (1965) demonstrated the influence models have on the performance of 4- and 5-year-olds on the delay-of-gratification task. After being tested on the task, children either observed an adult enact the opposite decision to what the child had just made or listened to a verbal description of the behaviour. For example, if the child chose to wait, the adult did not wait. Following this manipulation, children were immediately re-tested and again after a 4- to 5-week delay. Tellingly, children who at first delayed gratification shifted to choosing the immediate reward and children who initially chose the immediate reward tended to favour waiting for the delayed reward. Of note is the fact that the live model and the verbal model had a comparable impact on the immediate test, but only the live model influenced children’s behaviour at the 4- to 5-week follow-up.
An attribute of symbolic models is that they can take the form of a story, which is attractive for young children who regularly have storybooks read to them. Illustrated stories are particularly effective with preschool children because they are visually interesting and easy to memorize (Strayhorn Jr, 1988). Picture books have the potential to provide children with information about the world, allowing them to acquire additional knowledge to what they learn by personal experience (Heath, Houston-Price & Kennedy, 2014). For example, picture books influence a child’s healthy eating behaviour (de Droog, Buijzen & Valkenburg, 2014; Heath, Houston-Price & Kennedy, 2014) and facilitate the acquisition of novel words and their extension to real objects, especially when these objects are realistically depicted in the picture book (Ganea, Pickard & DeLoache, 2008; Tare et al., 2010). Further, 18- to 30-month-old children can learn simple novel actions through picture book readings (Simcock & DeLoache, 2006).
In addition to the pictures displayed, the behaviour of characters or the comments they make can also be used to show children how to achieve specific goals or acquire coping strategies (Strayhorn Jr, 1988). Narrations in storybooks may provide information about resolving problems successfully and indicate the personal qualities and behaviours that are associated with the achievement of a goal. Therefore, storybooks may foster messages coming directly from caregivers about which beliefs and behaviours are fundamental for success (Suprawati, Anggoro & Bukatko, 2014). Through repeating the story, as children often like to do, the child is free to imaginatively experience the behaviour or cognitive pattern of the model and rehearse it. Repetition may also help with abstraction, aiding a child’s ability to transfer the behaviour to situations beyond those conveyed in the story (Strayhorn Jr, 1988). It is known that the effectiveness of modelling can be promoted by presenting a model who encounters similar difficulties to the child, and who models how to overcome these difficulties through self-directed instruction (Meichenbaum, 1971). Children who have trouble in activities similar to those the model experiences are more likely to imitate the model than children who are successful in those activities (Gelfand, 1962), and models whose behaviour is rewarded are more likely to be imitated than models whose behaviour is punished (Bandura, 1965).
Although the potential influence of symbolic models has been discussed extensively in the literature, few studies have actually investigated the potential impact of symbolic models on the ability of children to delay gratification. In one of the few studies, Lee et al. (2008) investigated whether the ability of preschool children to delay gratification could be influenced by either explicitly labelling the children as being very patient individuals, saying that they had heard they were able to concentrate well and do boring things for a long period of time, or by reading a story to them in which an impulsive child received only one gift whereas a patient child received two gifts. The children who were labelled as patient delayed significantly longer than children in the control group, demonstrating the power of self-perception and priming. However, no statistically significant differences were found between the storytelling group and the control group, although they did delay one minute longer on average than controls (Lee et al., 2008). The limited effect of storytelling in this study could be due to the fact that the story was only read once, and to a full classroom. It is an open question as to whether reading the story to children individually, and on multiple occasions, would produce more promising results.
The current study was designed to examine the effects of both personal and impersonal storytelling on a 3-year old’s ability to delay gratification. Children were given storybooks to take home included either a personal or impersonal story, and parents were asked to read the storybooks to their children for approximately 1 week. Critically, the child’s ability to delay gratification was assessed both before and after the storybook intervention. We hypothesized that that children in the personal and impersonal storytelling conditions would delay gratification longer than those in the control condition, because models in the story demonstrated that waiting will be rewarded with a large gift and being impatient leads to a small gift. Further, it was predicted that children in the personal storytelling condition, whose names were included in the story, would wait longer than children in the impersonal storytelling condition. This second prediction was based on previous findings demonstrating that perceiving oneself as similar to the model enhances reproduction of the modelled behaviour and that observing similar others succeed reinforces one’s belief in one’s own capabilities (Bandura & McClelland, 1977; Schunk, 1987).
A total of 83 (37 boys and 50 girls) 3-year-old children participated in the present study (Mean age: 34 months 20 days, Range: 30 months 17 days to 39 months 27 days). Three additional parents withdrew their children from the study after participating in the pre-test due to family reasons. One child was excluded from the sample because their post-intervention test took place one month after the pre-intervention test, due to unforeseen delays. All children were recruited from the Early Learning Project database of parents who had expressed interest in taking part in research at the University of Otago and participated with written consent from their parents. At the end of the experimental session, children received a small gift and parents received a patrol voucher to compensate them for their travel costs to and from the laboratory. This study was approved by the Human Ethics Committee at the University of Otago (Approval Number: 11/106).
The experimental room contained a sofa and a child’s table with four different coloured chairs. Parents were asked to remain seated on the sofa behind the child, who sat at the table facing away from them. On the table in front of the child were two closed gift boxes of different sizes: the small gift box measured 8 cm in width and 6 cm in height, and the large gift box 16 cm in width and 13 cm in height. Each gift box could be opened by lifting the lid, to which an ornamental ribbon was attached. Gift boxes were chosen over wrapped gifts because taking a peak under a lid is easier than unwrapping a gift, presumably making it more tempting for children. The small gift box contained five stickers, and the large gift box contained either a male or female Playmobil® figure.
Six versions of the picture book were created. The images in the picture book were the same for all conditions, except that girls saw princesses and fairy godmothers, while boys saw princes and wizards. Only the content of the story changed from one condition to the next. In the control story, two princes or princesses go for a walk in the forest, where they meet a benevolent magical figure (wizard or fairy godmother). One child is a bit hungry and is given a lollipop, while the other child receives a toy that they had supposedly lost in the forest and which the magical figure had found. In contrast to the control story, the personal- and impersonal modelling stories deliberately model a delay-of-gratification scenario. In these stories, the princes or princesses come across the magical figure and are offered a choice between receiving a small gift immediately or a larger gift later. One child is impatient while the other is willing to wait. The impatient child only receives a lollipop while the patient child receives a teddy bear (girls) or toy car (boys) after waiting for the magical figure to return with more ‘present potion’ or ‘magic present dust.’ The only difference between the personal- and impersonal modelling stories was that the patient prince or princess was named after the participant in the personal condition. All parents were asked to read the assigned storybook to their child every night before bedtime for 1 week.
Families were contacted by telephone and were given a description of the experiment. When parents agreed for their child to participate in the study, the child was randomly assigned to one of three conditions: personal storytelling (n = 27), impersonal storytelling (n = 27) and control storytelling (n = 29).
In the initial phase of the experiment, the children’s ability to delay gratification was assessed using the maintenance paradigm (Mischel, 2014; Mischel, Shoda & Rodriguez, 1989). This paradigm consists of a single trial where the total amount of time that the child is willing to wait for a reward is measured.
Children were tested individually in a quiet room by a female experimenter. The experimenter brought the participant to the laboratory where the child was given 5 min to get accustomed to the room and its decorations. During this time the parent read and signed the consent form and completed a questionnaire. The experimenter then seated the child at the table, facing away from their parent. The behaviour of the children was filmed by a camera that was set up in the room. Parents stayed in the room with the child during the experiment and were asked not to distract the child by asking questions, directing the child’s attention to things in the environment, or making comments concerning the task.
The children were shown both gift boxes, and were told that if they did not peek into the little gift box until the experimenter came back into the room (15 min) that they could keep what was in the little gift and would additionally receive what was in the larger gift box. The time started when the experimenter left the room, taking the larger gift with them. The dependent measure was the number of minutes between the moment the experimenter closed the door and the moment the child opened the lid of the gift box or the end of the specified 15 min period. Upon completion of the task, the children were given their assigned storybook and parents received instructions to read the book to their children once a day for 1 week.
One week later, all children returned to the laboratory for a second test of their ability to delay gratification. The same procedure was used as in the pre-intervention.
Parents filled out a questionnaire created by Busby Grant & Suddendorf (2011) assessing their child’s production and accurate use of temporal terms. The questionnaire is composed of a list of 18 temporal terms and phrases. Parents are asked to indicate whether their child uses these terms by answering with yes or no, and to rate how frequently and accurately their child uses these terms on a five-point Likert scale (1 = ‘never’, 2 = ‘occasionally,’ 3 = ‘sometimes,’ 4 = ‘often,’ 5 = ‘always’). Parents completed the questionnaire prior to children being assessed.
The performance of children in each condition is shown in Table 1. Across the three groups, 30/83 children (Personal story: 8/27, Impersonal story: 10/27, Control: 12/29) waited the full 15 min at pre-test. With these children included, the average time children were willing to wait at the pre-intervention assessment was 7.81 min (Personal story: 7.94 min., Impersonal story: 7.18 min, Control: 8.29 min). Importantly, the average time children were willing to wait did not differ across the three conditions pre-intervention, F(2, 80) = .218, p = .804.
|N (boy/girl)||27 (12/15)||27 (12/15)||29 (13/16)||37||46|
|N (boy/girl)||27 (12/15)||27 (12/15)||29 (13/16)||37||46|
To assess the potential impact of symbolic modelling, we conducted a repeated-measures Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with Condition (2: Personal storytelling vs. Impersonal storytelling vs. Control) and Gender (2: girls vs. Boys) as factors. The analysis revealed no significant effect of Session, F(1, 76) = .890, p = .348, suggesting the length of time children were willing to wait did not differ between the pre- and post-intervention phases. Further, there was no Session by Condition interaction, F(2, 76) = .316, p = .730, suggesting the absence of any change between pre- and post-intervention was true for all three conditions. Finally, there was no Session by Condition by Gender interaction, F(2, 76) = .104, p = .902, suggesting the absence of any change between pre- and post-intervention, for any condition, was true for both boys and girls. Overall, this shows that the modelled behaviour in the fairy tales did not lead to a statistically significant improvement in the children’s self-control.
The absence of any change between the pre- and post-intervention sessions could be due to a ceiling effect as 30 (36%) children waited the 15 min at the pre-intervention assessment and consequently could not further improve at the post-intervention assessment. Therefore, a second repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted with these children excluded. A significant effect of Session was found, F(1, 47) = 4.29, p = .044, suggesting a change in the length of time children were willing to wait between pre- and post-intervention, but no interaction was found between Session and Condition, F(2, 47) = .686, p = .509, indicating that this change between pre- and post-intervention was present in all conditions. Finally, no Session by Gender by Condition interaction was found, F(2, 47) = 13.64, p = .452, suggesting the change between pre- and post-intervention was observed in all conditions, for both girls and boys. The fact that children were willing to wait longer in the post-intervention assessment may be due to the children being more comfortable with the experimenter and the context of the experiment. Since this improvement in waiting time was observed across all conditions we can once again conclude that symbolic modelling did not influence the children’s ability to delay gratification (Table 2).
|N (boy/girl)||19 (10/9)||17 (9/8)||17 (10/7)||29||24|
|N (boy/girl)||19 (10/9)||17 (9/8)||17 (10/7)||29||24|
Out of exploratory interest we investigated whether the children’s use of temporal terms was related to their ability to delay gratification. We correlated the children’s mean waiting time (across pre- and post-intervention assessments) with scores obtained on the three questions in the temporal questionnaire. The number of temporal terms used by the children was significantly correlated with their ability to delay gratification, n = 83, r = .259, p = .018. Further, the frequency with which children used these terms, n = 83, r = .303, p = .005, and how accurately they used them, n = 83, r = .335, p = .002, also correlated with their waiting time. Importantly, these effects held when Age was partialed out (use of temporal terms, n = 83, r = .242, p = .029, frequency, n = 83, r = .287, p = .009, and accuracy, n = 83, r = .322, p = .003) suggesting this effect is not simply due to the fact that older children likely use these terms more frequently and have longer waiting times.
With respect to gender, there was a significant effect of gender on the time children were willing to wait, F(1, 76) = 4.825, p = .031, but no Gender by Time interaction, F(1, 76) = .355, p = .553, suggesting this effect was consistent across the pre- and post-intervention assessments (Table 1). On average, pre-intervention girls waited 8.94 min and boys waited 6.42 min, with a similar difference post-intervention, where girls waited 9.60 min and boys waited 6.15 min. To investigate whether this difference was related to the children’s use of temporal terms, we conducted a series of independent-sample t-tests comparing boys and girls across the three time questionnaire measures. Interestingly, compared to boys, girls used significantly more temporal terms, t(81) = 2.912, p = .005, d = .63, and used them both more frequently, t(81) = 2.636, p = .010, d = .58, and more accurately, t(81) = 2.243, p = .028, d = .49 (Fig. 1).
The aim of the current study was to investigate whether the self-control of 3-year-olds could be improved by exposing them to a symbolic model demonstrating self-control. It was hypothesised that children would assimilate the behaviour of the patient child in the storybook and, as a result, be willing to wait longer for a large reward. Further, it was hypothesised that naming the symbolic model after the child (personal storytelling condition) would have a greater influence on the children’s wait times than a symbolic model with an unrelated name (impersonal storytelling condition). In contrast to our predictions, neither children in the personal nor impersonal storytelling condition waited longer at the post-intervention assessment, and the wait times of children in these two conditions were no different to those of children in the control group. When children who waited the full 15 min at the pre-intervention assessment were excluded, a significant difference was found between pre- and post-intervention assessments but this difference was not influenced by condition. It must be acknowledged, however, that excluding the children who waited the 15 min on the pre-intervention assessment reduces the statistical power of the analysis and thus we must interpret the absence of an effect of condition with caution. The improvement between the pre- and post-intervention assessments may be due to a practice effect, with the presentation of the same task at pre- and post-intervention assessments resulting in the child being more familiar with the procedure and the task, and thereby enhancing his or her performance (Schmidt & Teti, 2006). Also, in the post-intervention phase children may have (correctly) assumed that the content of the gift box sitting in front of them was the same as in the pre-intervention phase, perhaps making it less tempting to open.
With respect to symbolic models, our storybooks may not have influenced the children’s self-control because, being between 2 and 3 years of age, the children in the current study may not yet have developed the conceptual understanding required to assimilate the behaviour. Although the children in the current study could likely understand the story, they may not have understood that the story demonstrated the concept of patience and therefore did not apply this concept to their own behaviour. Sloutsky (2003) suggests that children learn concepts through both perceptual and attentional mechanisms, detecting similarities or discrepancies in the environment and creating categories based on the correspondences they observe. Presenting examples of the concept and contrasting examples helps children detect the important features and facilitates categorization. Concrete concepts (e.g. book, animal, tree) are learnt more easily than abstract concepts (e.g. patience, fairness), because perceptual similarities facilitate the categorization of these objects. Little is known about the development of abstract concepts (Baddeley, 1999; Sloutsky, 2003). It is possible that young children must be exposed to abstract concepts multiple times in varying contexts to fully understand the meaning of these concepts and to apply them in their everyday life. Further, Simcock & DeLoache (2006) showed that the understanding of the relation between a symbol and what it stands for is in its early stages at 2.5 years, supporting the statement that the children in our study may not have benefited from our picture-book due to their still-developing conceptual understanding.
Separate from the concept of patience, our results suggest that the children’s knowledge of the benefits of waiting (i.e., receiving a bigger present) was not sufficient to keep them from opening the present before the 15 min elapsed. This discrepancy between knowledge and behaviour has also been demonstrated on card-sorting tasks where children must switch between sorting rules. Zelazo, Frye & Rapus (1996) presented children with a set of cards that had coloured shapes on them and had the children sort them according to a single rule (e.g., by colour). After learning the first rule, children were taught a new rule and were asked again to sort the cards by this new rule. Interestingly, 3-year-old children expressed knowledge of the new rule, but continued to use the old rule, whereas 4-year-old children displayed no difficulty switching between the two rules. Zelazo, Frye & Rapus’s (1996) findings demonstrate that, for children aged 3 years and younger, knowledge is not always sufficient to influence actions. In the current study, it is possible that the children’s knowledge of the benefits of waiting was not sufficient to overcome their prepotent response to open the gift. It is possible that children aged four and older may benefit more from symbolic models in storybooks than younger children.
In our storybook, both the non-patient and the patient child received a gift from the magical figure: the first received a lollipop and the second received a toy. Social learning theory suggests that the rewards associated with the modelled behaviour influence the likelihood of the behaviour being imitated (Bandura & McClelland, 1977). It is possible that some children perceived the lollipop as more desirable than the toy and, consequently, displayed similar non-patient behaviour on our laboratory task. To exclude this possibility, it would be interesting to vary the magnitude (e.g., size), rather than the type, of the reward the child receives if they wait. Bandura & McClelland’s (1977) theory also recognizes the importance of perceived similarity between the model and the learner, which may have been lacking in our storybook due the stories being more fantasy-based. Placing pictures of actual children in the storybook would improve the similarity between the book and the real world and may increase children’s self-efficacy (Dowrick, 2000).
A serendipitous finding of the current study was the relationship between the children’s production and accurate use of temporal terms and their ability to wait for the larger reward; that is, the more temporal terms children used and the more accurately they used them, the longer they were willing to wait. This effect held when age was partialed out, suggesting it was not simply due to older children having both a better vocabulary and longer waiting times. Previous studies have shown that children’s use of temporal terms begins at around the age of 2 and rapidly grows thereafter. Busby Grant & Suddendorf (2011) suggested that 3-year-olds often and accurately use terms representing the present and broad temporal terms such as ‘soon’ or ‘later.’ Specific terms related to the future or the past (e.g., yesterday, tomorrow) are learnt later than general terms (e.g., when I was little), between the age of 3 and 5 years. In our study, girls had a larger temporal vocabulary than boys and, interestingly, also waited longer than boys. Surprisingly, Busby Grant & Suddendorf (2011) did not find gender differences in the use or accuracy of temporal terms.
Consistent with our findings, a recent meta-analysis reported that girls delay gratification for longer periods of time (Silverman, 2003). Speculatively, our finding suggests this link may be due to the ability of girls to use temporal terms, and that their use of temporal terms may reflect a clearer understanding of the past and future. It is possible that children with a larger temporal vocabulary are better able to project themselves into the future, and are willing to delay gratification to give their future-self a larger reward than what the present-self would receive. It is through conversations about the self in noncurrent situations that children learn about their extended self in time (Moore & Lemmon, 2001; Nelson, 2001). Between the ages of 2 and 5, children acquire the sense of self as continuous in time, with increasing capacity to talk about different experiences (Nelson, 2001), and it is also between these years that the ability of children to delay gratification slightly increases (Lemmon & Moore, 2007). To our knowledge, no studies have analysed the relation between knowledge of temporal terms and the ability to sacrifice an immediate reward in favour of a future larger reward. It is possible that the more specific temporal terms children understand and use, the better their understanding of time and the better their representation of the self in time.
In our study, we did not measure the children’s general language competence which may also relate to their ability to delay gratification. Language impairments are known to correlate with maladaptive outcomes, such as ADHD (Bruce, Thernlund & Nettelbladt, 2006; Cohen et al., 2000), aggressive behaviours (Dionne et al., 2003; Estrem, 2005) and poor problem solving (Baldo et al., 2005; Cohen et al., 1998), which are all linked to low self-control. Language skills are thought to enhance the self-regulatory competence of children by enabling them to express themselves verbally instead of emotionally, reflect on their behaviour, and occupy themselves in the presence of emotional circumstances (Cole, Armstrong & Pemberton, 2010). For example, language may allow children to reflect on rules and shift their attention, rather than focusing on items that they cannot have (Roben, Cole & Armstrong, 2013). To our knowledge, very few studies have analysed the link between language and self-control. Beaver et al. (2008) conducted a longitudinal study from the beginning of kindergarten to the end of first grade over four time points. They discovered that language skills significantly correlated with self-control at the beginning of kindergarten; this result held over years, showing that higher language competences are associated with higher self-control. In their longitudinal study following children from 18 to 48 months of age over four time points, Cole, Armstrong & Pemberton (2010) analysed how early language development influenced anger expressions and the use of regulatory strategies. They found that language skills and the rate of language growth at 24 and 36 months were a strong predictor of anger expressions at 48 months, with higher language skills being associated with lower anger expressions. Higher language skills were also associated with children’s initiation of seeking the support of their mothers at 36 and 48 months, which lead to less angry expressions. The language skills of children were also associated with their ability to distract themselves at 36 and 48 months of age, indicating that higher language skills are associated with a higher frustration threshold. These two studies show a significant link between self-control and language competence. Therefore, in the future it would be of interest to study the relationship between children’s general language competences, their understanding of time and their ability to delay gratification, in order to identify how each one contributes to variations in self-control.
With respect to limitations, in the present study we did not assess the children’s understanding of the theme or message of the storybook, although it is important to note that the book was short, had a simple story line, and was read to the children on multiple occasions. It would be beneficial in future studies to assess the children’s understanding of the book, perhaps by using the storybook as a prop and asking children to show and tell the experimenter what happens in the book. Previous studies have demonstrated that this show and tell technique is effective with young children (Hayne & Imuta, 2011; Scarf et al., 2013). A second limitation is that parents, and often siblings, were in the experimental room during the delay-of-gratification task. This may have influenced the children’s behaviour by distracting them or by giving implicit signals to not open the present (e.g., movements of the head, moving when the child reached for the gift) (Bandura, 1992; Putnam, Spritz & Stifter, 2002). Finally, parents may have coached their child between the pre- and post-intervention tests. For example, one parent noted that they tried to train their child on a delay-of-gratification task at home and thoroughly discussed the behaviours described in the book.
In summary, the present suggests 3-year-old children do not assimilate a behaviour modelled in a storybook into their own behaviour. Between pre-school and primary school, a child’s language ability and conceptual understanding increases dramatically and, therefore, symbolic models may be more effective for children slightly older than those used in the present experiment. The positive relationship observed between the children’s temporal vocabulary and their ability to delay gratification suggests a larger temporal vocabulary may be linked to children’s understanding of the future and the past, and this may make it easier for children to envisage the self in the future receiving the large reward, making the small reward less tempting. Future studies may look to investigate the possible relationship between the ability to delay gratification and children’s perception of the extended self in time.


Strong Communities for Children
What are the Need of childhood training and care services?
Children are able to realize healthier results when their different strengths, skills, wellbeing, and social practices are understood and sustained. Appreciating and regarding range is vital for children to cultivate a solid intellect of identity. Values of fair play and miscellany are connected to children raising a sense of belonging, identity, and interests so that they become active conversationalists and confident, involved students. The values of parity and diversity are acknowledged all over the world and nationwide in law and certified training in schooling. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child has supported children’s civil rights and safeguarded that equity and multiplicity are conspicuous in administration programs (Ferdinand, Kelaher, and Paradies, 2013). The codes of equity and diversity in early babyhood learning are consistent and cover a wide range of thoughts. They necessitate specialists to enthusiastically speak matters of difference and to support the significance of diversity and change. Therefore in order to embrace a strong community various methods can be implemented to see to it that people stay together in peace. To achieve this parents and cares play the most vital role followed by the ECEC services where young people can emulate and learn the need to embrace strong community apart from direct observation which may not be an effective methods.
Child care across cultures can at times be perplexing, particularly as soon as the morals and beliefs of one principle are poles apart to those from another. As a result this can make it rigid for people to feel a sense of fit in to any society. Conversely, when close relatives and cares find a way of child-care that feels correct for them, it aids the entire intimate to cultivate a social distinctiveness and a sense of fit in. This is chiefly significant for kids, since a sense of belonging and a solid social identity supports their intellectual health and welfare. There are many things that can support people to develop a sense of fit in, and this includes:
Enhancing a sense of traditional uniqueness is of great significance as it supports the development of a child’s self-worth and identity, and their feeling of belonging to their community (Abrams, Maxwell, Pope, and Belgrave, 2014). These are all defensive factors for psychological health and happiness in babyhood. Teenagers’ cultural identity progress through traditions, relationships, storytelling and language. Parents as well as guardians can help their kids to associate with their culture by partaking social stories and live out.
Social networks and friendships are essential for both children as well as their relatives, since it assists children to feel part of the society. Creating relations with other relatives can aid an individual to feel wanted and part of the entire family. People are able to construct networks across various diverse communal and ethnic groups.
At some point it is key to seek help for each person in times of stress. Accordingly, this can be useful as it assists an individual to look for help in their individual language while trying to cope up with challenging matters. Although at times it can take long to get the exact person to provide help to an individual, support is available from many points such as community organizations like ECEC services, government agencies such as family support services among many others.
Relationships play a vital role in helping people understand one another and work together in peace. Going to an ECEC service can be a fresh experience to some societies, therefore developing helpful affairs can help construct a sense of fit in and attachment. A constructive association with an ECEC facility also means a clan is expected to beat ease about approaching instructors. Relations are an essential source of evidence and intuition about their offspring and the confidence or concerns they might hold for them. Educators can ask families what is important to them and request them to take part in the ECEC service. A direction gathering can help new kinfolks cultivate affirmative affairs with their ECEC facility. Constructive relations help families, express high opinion for diversity and nurture children’s communal and emotional good.
Race-based perception is any kind of behavior that may cause unnecessary and biased shortcoming to the lesser ethnic/cultural groups and give chance to majority groups. It can happen at individual and organizational point. Racism can be counteracted by supporting constructive insolences and carry outs concerning multiplicity among persons and organizations. This includes finding perplexing practices that favor against those of different ethnic or cultural upbringings and promote comprehensive activities in their residence (Evans, Murphy, and de Jong, 2014).
Mentors can inspire affirmative surroundings by welcoming diversity into the service. For instance, they can provide a variety of prospects for kids and their relatives to share their own story which is likely to build a surrounding of social respect and credit of diversity. Communal respect across beliefs consists of being vulnerable to diverse thinking and methods and appreciating the enhancement it offers. While mentors are aware of social transformations in child care, clever to the matters encountered by families and aware of authority differences, this enhances good interactions with people. As a matter of fact when babyhood teachers have respect for the multiplicity of relatives as well as societies, and the ambitions that they embrace for teenagers (Varney, 2014). It becomes easier for them to nurture children’s inspiration to study and strengthen children’s sense of belonging as experienced learners.
It is true beyond doubt that feeling secure can take time to realize. Some people may have gone through substantial distress and disturbance in the process of struggling to or settle down in Australia. Such challenges may have continuing effects on folks. It is important that families take some time to talk about their practices and accept sensitive support when necessary. Folks are capable taking care of their offspring once they are conversant about and are associated to their societies.
Admiration for diversity is connected to individuals’ sense of fit in. Once diversity is treasured and appreciated societies are expected to advance a sense of belonging to their society and social networks with others. Individuals that have caring and constructive connections in their life such as people talking to each other, confidence and depend on one another; they are less likely to experience feelings of despair and nervousness in comparison to people who have less communal links. A sense of fit in to a community and being communally allied to one another acts as a shock absorber to trauma when individuals go through problems.
Youngsters’ link to their beliefs advances through children experiences. Particularly, sincere and safe expressive networks with the grownups that care for them support children to associate with their traditional distinctiveness. Children’s having a solid sense of their individual social past and the backgrounds helps children to construct a constructive ethnic personality for themselves. Similarly it develops kids’ sense of belonging and, this extends, their mental well-being.
Identify one’s own intentions: Firstly it is important to consider why one wants to reach out to other persons. Being honest about an individual’s incentives play a significant role as it makes everyone feel safe. A person’s reasons might be as simple as boosting community in their neighborhood which is important for all to take care of each other.
People need to begin with their own bias: people are supposed to be honest about their own stereotypes they hold of other people cultures, life experience and customs. It is true that all people have their stereotypes, but by acknowledging these differences it is possible to work together and overcome them.
Parents should allow children to play together: children have a supernatural way to break through language barriers and cultural differences.
This can be a starting point for building and developing powerful relationships with parents of their children friends (Morrison, 2012).
People need to manage their expectations: in order to build a solid community individuals need to go slow so that to be in a better position to understand that they might not experience an immediate union. Trust takes time to build. They can create customs together for developing their relations, instead of assuming that what is right to them is also right to other people.
People need not to appropriate: individuals can admire a culture that is not their own, but they can never own it. There is need therefore for people to be extremely careful about how they involve in certain matter, particularly matter of traditions, rituals and spirituality. The best way is to let someone from that culture to teach them on how they can best honor what is sacred to them.
Be human: basically people differences are real and they shape how individuals experience the world. However, the most important thing is that all human beings have same needs and desires, thus identifying things that they share help them to remember that they still need one another for them to reach their full potential.
Developing relationships: Relationships play a big role as it helps individuals to appreciate other people and to work together. Developing relations across beliefs requires upright interaction to support youngsters’ communal and emotive interests. Once a clan and an ECEC facility are evolving a fresh connection, it can aid to remember that sometimes people will understand things from a perspective that is different to their own. Children taking part ECEC service may be a new experience for some people, as is the idea that families and educators can work together to support children’s progress and wellbeing. Developing a bond with their kid’s ECEC service benefits families in many ways (Morales, 2015). For instance, it makes it easier for a kinfolk feel relaxed about forthcoming mentors and share key facts and awareness about their offspring, and the anticipations they might clench for them. Optimistic relations between relatives and teachers also express high opinion for diversity which raises youngsters’ social and passionate good.
Every kid has an exceptional culture path that entails open, personalized education and expansion prospects that will allow children to realize their full potential. As at the moment the variety in Australian infancy surroundings is developing steadily. Currently there are over 350 languages pronounced in Australia with more than 10% of the people speaking a language apart from English at family level.
People that come from ethnically different environments face a number of problems as they strive to discover their way in the wider Australian culture. Some of the collective problems include:
At times language can be the main hurdle for people new to a place. Problems of interacting in English can lead to a number of challenges for kin struggling to discover their path into a new community. Language obstacles can demoralize an individual’s self-confidence, by making daily life tougher and make it tauter to form communal connections. Also language barriers make interactions with ECEC facilities quite hard for blood relatives and cares. Most people benefit if they are able to interact in the language they are most at ease with.
When there is a difference in beliefs, and people practices it can lead to confusions. For instance, in certain cultures it is acceptable for persons to openly look down upon an offer; on the other hand, other cultures this is not the case. In case these dissimilarities are not known by both parties, it can lead to and misinterpretations on both sides.
Taking care of children across different cultures can be hectic at some point. There are much dissimilarity in child raising practices among cultures, including but not restricted to the ways kids are shown love, approaches towards correction and how much importance is placed on family accountability linked with upholding children’s freedom. Certain ethnic practices can have very firm codes of conduct according to a child’s age or gender. Families might also be concerned about children losing their cultural identity through contact with children with different cultural backgrounds, attending ECEC services with assertiveness different to their exposure to the media.
Belonging to more than one cultural group at times can be puzzling for children. Children from different cultural settings time and again find differences in the beliefs and expectations of them at home and at the ECEC service that they go to. Sometimes this means these children feel mixed up about what is expected of them at both places. At some point it can mean that they are faced with difficult choices when the expectations of others do not meet theirs.
Consequently, in order to help children from different culturally settings at the ECEC service people and mentors need to discuss likely differences in child rising. In case this does not take place, cultural differences in parenting can create tension between folks and teachers, and confusion for children. Instructors may help children to become better when they appreciate and realize that they come from different settings which have unique ethnic distinctiveness (comprising particular beliefs of behavior and interaction). Similarly, under such conditions, youngsters and their people feel relaxed and treasured by their ECEC service.
Persons travel from one area, state to settle down in a new place for different reasons. Folks can travel because of fear of being affected or victimized against issues like race, religion; or they can leave their motherland and ask to be acknowledged as an immigrant to be protected (Couchenour, and Chrisman, 2013).
Settling down in a new place can be difficult. People need to get shelter, work, and an ECEC service, and make connections with organizations. It is vital that these people that have migrated gain access to upkeep to aid them settle down into their newfangled societies. Not knowing how things work in the new community can make resettling more challenging and stressful. Family, friends and others who would normally provide support may have been left behind in the move. There can be feelings of loneliness, isolation or worry for those left behind. It is true that these difficulties affect all members of a family.
Nonetheless, having respect for the diverse cultural backgrounds is vital as it helps persons to feel appreciated within their locality. When folks develop networks with others, it helps them to go through puzzling times. With regard to this it helps to construct emotional state of belonging within communities and supports each person’s mental health.
The familiarities of children and families from culturally diverse environments are molded by their run into a new culture, and it has substantial special effects on their sense of insertion and involvement with the larger society. ECEC amenities also play a fundamental part in supporting kids with diverse social upbringings and their families by upholding and carry out wide-ranging practices and supporting them to build durable connections to community support during times of evolution.
Once teachers are conversant with every family unit specific state of affairs, ECEC facilities are capable to attain the culture, community and happiness necessities of children and their people. By understanding the desires and wellbeing of children and families from culturally diverse backgrounds and building relationships of dependence and understanding with parents and cares, ECEC amenities can make an affirmative variance to children’s psychological health and safety. It also helps to address technical hitches that can happen in an infancy background.
ECEC amenities also sustain children and people from diverse settings by enhancing understanding and diversity appreciation. Children enjoy when ECEC carry out its services because it builds a comprehensive surrounding whereby everybody can take part and feel attached. A solid sense of fit in aids children to realize and recognize dissimilarities among them.
In addition ECEC services can also help people to feel linked and with regard to this it develops ones identity by giving them the chance to interact with other kinfolks. While this takes place, it has various advantages to kids’ and people’s mental health and wellbeing, like developing fellow feeling and constructing constructive connections with other people.
Early infant experts assess children’s learning and development by providing individualized support to attain best results. By assessing children’s strong point, capabilities and wellbeing is crucial so as to deliver receptive care and education. Specialists evaluate kids by learning what they know, their strong point and aptitudes, whereby they need support to find places where attentive intervention is required. Educators must understanding a child’s development standards and understanding equity and diversity by assessing children. Relatives and cares have sufficient information about their children that ought to be utilized in the assessment process, as well as considerations of context and children results. It is essential to understand that families will respond to valuation in distinctive ways, and it is significant to offer family support in certain cases.
Personalized or segregated help is essential for every kid to attain their maximum potential. Fair play means knowing the multifaceted nature of shortcoming and acting with determination to address it. An example of differentiated instruction for Native students was the ‘Bridging the Gap’ project that aimed to support children’s literacy in the home. This inventiveness was intended to develop children’s early learning that forecast secure of school success. The project was centered on the need of this specific community to support children’s literacy at home and it had helpful effects on children’s relations with books, their self-confidence, their parent-child connections and their early learning abilities. An additional example of the significance of distinguished instruction is defined in case studies of children learning English as a second language. For instance, (Patterson, 2016) details how ordinary English as a second language practices in one school were disempowering children and restricting their aptitude to take part in extra language book learning. With the introduction of storytelling in the children’s first language allowed children and built on their strengths, empowering them to feel assured about their language aptitudes.
Early childhood carry out are all-encompassing and quick to respond to diversity and children with extra needs.
Inclusion means eliminating obstacles to meaningful participation and engagement. (Varney, 2014) offers some real ways to support inclusion in early childhood backgrounds through scheduling to support the child’s singular needs. This may include consideration of physical and flexibility requirements of specific goals with attention to learning styles and appropriate level. Adjusting to this approach can guarantee that all children take part at every level that is challenging and meaningful for them so that all learners can aggressively take part even if they are not capable to participate fully.
Specialists build surroundings that encourage deferential relations between children, experts, families and the community. Specialists act as role models by having high prospects for each child and presenting respect for diversity (Kaplan, Sanchez, and Hoffman, 2016). By creating these approaches early childhood experts can have optimistic effect on children’s peer relationships which in turn leads to better results for children. Experts know that equity and diversity require responsive, individualized care and education sense that there is no one right method or theory to work with families who have diverse needs.
Professionals involve families in partnerships that respect and search for understanding about cultural values and diversity. Family-centered practice is extensively well thought-out to be top practice in the early babyhood field. Family-centered practice can be defined as a partnership method that values family awareness, works from a strengths-based standpoint and upholds family selection and decision making with regard to possessions, goals and development. Family-centered practice identifies the significance of backing family unit, particularly in cases where a child may be identified with a disability or developmental delay. This support should include facilitating social networks, providing appropriate information and empowering families.
Partnerships with families call for early childhood professionals to open lines of communication and inspire families to share information and thoughts. Equity and diversity are vital in engagement with families as some families will require extra time, resources or support to make sure their unbiased engagement with the service. Family relations are multifaceted and affected by a number of factors and early childhood specialists should be ready to work with a diverse choice of families who may have diverse priorities and beliefs from their own. Family-centered practice call for an energetic and organized line of attack to ensure that families are involved at all levels of service delivery and decision making (CFCS, 2013).
Getting Top Grades is No Longer a Dream for You.
Early childhood experts enhance children to develop a sense of place and link to the surrounding.
Place-based education link teenagers to a place, time, communal, and know-how. Educators can help kids to cultivate a sense of place and belonging by inspiring them to make sense through their communications with people and the surroundings. Research reveals that a place a strong role in identity formation and can give children a sense of connectedness to their community and environment. Specialists can support children’s networks to place through strong partnerships with families and the indigenous community.
The above report has summarised that children are able to realize healthier results when their different strengths, skills, well-being, and social practices are understood and sustained. Appreciating and regarding range is vital for children to cultivate a solid intellect of identity. Values of fair play and miscellany are connected to children raising a sense of belonging, identity, and interests so that they become active conversationalists and confident, involved students. The values of parity and diversity are acknowledged all over the world and nationwide in law and certified training in schooling.
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The history of African music recording and archiving can be seen most clearly and compellingly by detailing the history of a few key individuals, who were pioneers in their field. At the turn of the 20th Century, a colonised Africa was viewed as backward and void of any real culture worth preserving, which is why these ethnomusicologists were not only groundbreaking in their ideas, but revolutionary. They understood, far before the rest of the Western world could even comprehend, that traditional African music – with its complexity of rhythms, flair for storytelling and historical richness – was worth preserving.
Hugh Tracey 1903 – 1977
Arriving in Rhodesia – now Zimbabwe – in 1921 with his brother, who had been awarded land after his efforts in World War 1, the young man of only 18 years old had the foresight of a wise elder. He was surrounded by disdain for African culture from the Christian missionaries, who forbade the playing of the mbira, due to the pagan themes of ancestor worship and the insurrectional ideas gleaned from spirits that featured heavily in the songs. However, Tracey was able to see past the prejudice and ignorance. He was fascinated by the songs, which were sung by the Shona farmers, with whom he and his brother worked alongside on the tobacco fields. He was said to have been ‘bitten’ by Africa; ‘he got cultural malaria.’ Tracey, although very aware of the colonial oppression of African culture, or perhaps because of it, made it his life mission to record traditional African music; a mission which many others adopted after him. After making the first recording of indigenous Rhodesian music, being awarded the Carnegie Fellowship grant to study South Rhodesian music, with which he made over 600 recordings, and inspiring traditional English musicians, Ralph Vaughn Williams and Gustav Holst, at the Royal Academy of Music, who urged him to “discover every chord” of traditional African music, Tracey ran out of funding. He became a broadcaster, utilising every opportunity to promote African music.
However, he could not stay away from Africa long, and in 1946 realised someone needed to fully dedicate their time to “appraising the social value” of traditional African music, otherwise it would disappear. Tracey would have to step up and be that someone, especially at a time when African radios wanted to broadcast in their own regional vernaculars but had no recordings of regional music to play. He was lucky enough to obtain funding from Eric Gallo, who owned a recording label in South Africa. They had a “gentlemen’s agreement” that any artists Tracey discovered who had commercial potential, he would forward to Gallo. He therefore started the career of some of Africa’s first popular musicians, such as Jean Bosco Mwenda. Masanga, by Mwenda, was one of the first truly popular songs in Africa.
However, as Tracey’s particular concern was that the recordings he made were kept authentic and not manipulated for commercial use, he strayed from the popular African music he was helping to create, and continued to focus more on the traditional. He secured funding from various projects, after a lecturing tour in the UK, and set up The International Library of African music in 1954, where his 20000 recordings are today stored. The ILAM will be explored further in a later blog of this series.
- There are a few of Hugh Tracey’s recordings available online on the British Library Sound Archive, under the David Rycroft South African Collection. However, to play these you need to be studying further or higher education to obtain access to these.
- More Hugh Tracey, his Sounds of Africa and Music of Africa, can be found on the British Library Sound and Moving Image Catalogue – however, this simply confirms the existence of the recording. To listen to the recordings, one must make an appointment with the Listening Service to listen to the recordings on site at the British Library.
- Michael Baird produced 21 CDs of Tracey’s work; Historical Recordings of Hugh Tracey series. These can be bought online at SWP Records and a review of most of the CDs can be found here. Michael Baird said “The sad conclusion after compiling this series is that so much music recorded by HT [Hugh Tracey] has since disappeared — within the space of fifty years. This is something HT foresaw and why he spent most of his life recording this music for posterity. It was not so much Tracey’s ‘knack’ of being at the right place at the right time, but his awareness and vision coupled with organisation and his tremendous energy which give us the opportunity to listen to the many exceptional musicians he recorded today. In this series we are able to present many of the foremost musicians of the 20th century from this part of Africa — and that is a gift. It is especially a gift to the peoples involved, for the legacy as played by their forebears belongs to them.”
- ILAM has reissued, without modifications, on CD, Tracey’s Music of Africa Series
- Several albums can be bought on iTunes
Klaus Wachsmann 1907 – 1984
Wachsmann was a German born English ethnomusicologist, who travelled in Africa in 1937 as a missionary, serving in several offices in the Office of the Protestant Missions in Uganda. He was to do unpaid work with sacred music at Namirembe and with choral school choirs, before being promoted to more senior roles and then he was paid a salary. However, instead of quelling the African music culture – as those missionaries who Hugh Tracey encountered clearly did – Wachsmann lived for 20 years in Uganda working to preserve and archive it. During World War II, according to Peter Cooke in Ethnomusicology in East Africa: Perspectives from Uganda and Beyond, Wachsmann had his camera confiscated because he was regarded as a “friendly enemy alien”. This, coupled with the fact there was no running water at the Museum he was then to work in, explains why there are so few photographic records to go with his 1500 sound records. After his missionary work, he became Curator of the Uganda Museum and while there collected many musical instruments.
He received a grant from the British Government in 1949 – demonstrating that even Government authorities began to realise how essential documenting traditional African music was – which enabled him to record these 1500 recordings with the help of a sound engineer, who was responsible for the fantastic quality of the recordings, which he kept at the Uganda Museum. Wachsmann left Africa, and his tapes, in 1957 and worked in London as the Scientific Officer in charge of Ethnological Collections at the Wellcome Foundation until 1963. It was then that he was invited to become a lecturer at UCLA and was reunited with his tapes at the university, as the Uganda Museum did not have the equipment to archive them adequately. However, disaster struck and the tapes were unfortunately destroyed by a flood of the UCLA basement, demonstrating the difficulties of archiving with an easily destructible medium like reel-to-reel tapes and the importance of now digitising these perishable recordings. The sound engineer who had recorded the music with Wachsmann kindly offered up the copies he had made a kept aside.
Wachsmann went on to lecture at various universities and was awarded the bronze medal for “Devoted Service to Africa” from the Royal African Society in 1958. His legacy lives on as he gives his name to a prize for advanced and critical essays in organology, at The Society of Ethnomusicology. Moreover, the Klaus Wachsmann Music Archive at the Makerere University, Uganda, has recently been set up. There is a course in archiving at the university and archive at UCLA has been collaborating with Makerere University to provide up to date tools and skills, such as the digitisation of DAT and reel-to-reel tape. Dr Sylvia Nannyonga-Tamusuza from the university, in this article, sums up the importance of archiving “My hope is to create materials for secondary schools from the archive. In that way, (students) can be able to remember and to understand what was there before […] With the recordings, we can give (students) some background and some context; they would be able to understand and go find out more by themselves […] My thinking is that a culture that doesn’t have a history is a dead one.”
- His recordings are available to play online, for anyone, in the Klaus Wachsmann Collection at the British Library.
- Copies of his recordings can also be found at the UCLA archive, but cannot be streamed online.
David Fanshawe 1942 – 2010
David Fanshawe recording the Luo Tribe, Kenya, 1973. Photo Judith Croasdell
David Fanshawe did not limit himself to the confines of ethnomusicology and is described as an ‘internationally distinguished composer, ethno-musicologist, sound recordist, archivist, performer, dynamic and entertaining lecturer, record producer, photographer and author.’ As he was so broadly accomplished, he was involved in every aspect of the recording and archiving process of his music, which he gathered from across the world; beginning in the Middle East in 1966 and spreading through North and East African from 1969 till 1975. He later went on to record across the Pacific Ocean for ten years, from 1978. He is stated to have recorded hundreds of tribes and is commended for forming close relationships with them, which allowed him to gain permission to record their music.
Mary K. Oyer, b. 1923
Mary Oyer graduated from Goshen College – a private Christian college, historically affiliated with the Mennonite Church – in 1945, but was soon to return as she was invited to teach the General Education course integrating the study of music and visual art. She continued to teach at Goshen College, when in 1968 Oyer applied to be sent to a US Government funded program for Black Studies, operated by the faculty of UCLA. She was accepted and spent the summer of 1968 at UCLA and then travelling to five Sub-Saharan countries, from Senegal to Kenya in the summer of 1969, with a stop off in Uganda on her way home. Here she encountered Evalisto Muyinda, an out of work court musician playing at the Kampala Museum. She was taken by the endingidi, the one-stringed fiddle he was playing; she made her first recording, using her friend’s recorder, and bought an endingidi from Muyinda. [Can be found in the search under ‘Working Title: Evalisto Muyinda at the Uganda National Museum’] My favourite part about the Mary K. Oyer African Music Archive is that when searching every track, it lists the accompanying commentary from Mary Oyer, so you can hear in her own words the description of the music and the story behind it. By the end of the summer, after initially deciding between a focus on music and art, Oyer knew she wanted to channel her efforts into indigenous music. As a teacher, ‘She saw the enriching possibilities for including cross-cultural music in her related arts courses at Goshen College’ and began to teach an annual African Arts course. Over 20 years, Oyer visited 22 countries as she was lucky enough to receive funding from various projects: Kenya National Archives, Kenya Conservatoire of Music, a teaching assignment Kenyatta University and she worked with Mennonite Central Committee and Peace Corp. She was able to use her role as teacher and lecturer to spread the importance and beauty of traditional African music to young school children in Indiana, up to university students across the US and Canada. Oyer’s legacy has been continued due to a few key individuals understanding the significance of her work. Professor Debra Brubaker began the archive, Solomon Fenton-Miller began digitising the tapes and creating an outline for an archive of the information found on those recordings and Lisa Horst Schrock completed the digitisation process and interviewed Oyer about her travels and field recordings.
- All of Mary K. Oyer’s recordings can be found and listened to online in the Mary K. Oyer African Music Archive Database. You must email the Goshen College Music Department Office Coordinator (email address can be found on the website) to obtain a login and password to the database, who responded very quickly. There is a very useful Help page that makes it very easy to manoeuvre the archive. It is intended mostly for scholars, however, anyone expressing an interest will be granted access
Peter Cooke, b. 1930
Another teacher, Peter Cooke, began recording traditional African music when he began teaching at the Makerere College School in 1964. He was bereft of recordings of local music, and, at this time, only had the recordings that Hugh Tracey had made a few decades before, which were from all over Africa. When asked about the importance of recording traditional African music, he states ‘It was crucial to me to be able to direct the attention of young Ugandans to their own musical traditions: so often at weekends my wife and I drove off with students from different parts of the country to sample the music of their own local village musicians.’ An impressive example of initiative that lead one man, and his wife, to create essential recordings, in order to inspire his students. He was then transferred to run the music department in the National Teachers’ College at Kyambogo, where his recording work ‘took on even more importance.’ However, when it came to the archiving of Uganda tribal music, Cooke faced a disappointing set back; ‘It was important to leave copies of materials behind for further use by the Ugandans and others that followed me after I left [Uganda] in 1968. Unfortunately the tape copies I left behind just vanished during the chaotic years of Amin’s rule.’ He then contrasts the situation in Uganda with the ease and quality of archiving in Scotland, where he next went on to work at the School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, highlighting the imperative need for a more sustainable system for archiving in Uganda. Cooke also noted the importance of dissemination, which is why his work is produced on CDs, with teaching booklets making use of well documented recordings, complete with transcriptions and texts.
Cooke recording the Abasaasi, a team of drummers and singers outside the Kabaka’s country palace at Abamunanika in 1987 who had gathered to sing the praises of Prince Ronald Mutebi who had just returned from exile in London
However, as Cooke’s aim is, and always has been, to make traditional Ugandan music available to Ugandans, he was determined to see his work accessible there and it is now available at the Makerere University, although it wasn’t a simple decision; ‘until I was assured that a well managed archive was being set up at Makerere I was loath to deposit my materials there, after what had happened at Kyambogo Teachers’ College. The Makerere archive eventually came about through the good works of Sylvia Nannyonga Tamusuza and her Norwegian partners, though I had approached the librarian at Makerere about such a possibility many years previously.’ He has also sent his recordings back to other places in Uganda, such as to the Batwa ‘through the good offices of Chris Kidd, a post-grad at the time who was working with the Batwa’ and the family of Benedicto Mubangizi, who Cooke describes as a ‘marvellous person – teacher, educator, choir trainer, composer and folklorist’. He had made copies of this musician’s work in the 1960s and 1980s and tries ‘as much as possible to get samples back to the individual musicians’ he works with, but states ‘This is not always possible.’
When asked about how he would like to change the way his materials are archived, Cooke’s concern, firstly at the Makerere University, is that the archive is not accessible to everyone; ‘I am also very concerned to see that the Makerere recordings are made available to more than simply the university staff and students in that institution. In other words I would like to see that listening facilities are afforded to any Ugandan who want to listen to recordings at the archive. At present I don’t know what the position is.’ In addition, he hopes that ‘one of the original aims of the Makerere archive is followed through – namely to create ‘out-stations’ where further copies of the material at Makerere are made available in different areas of Uganda.’
Soga ebigwala trumpet team at Nambote village 1994
His material is also available at the British Library, which is able to be accessed by everyone online. However, it is quite a difficult archive for novices to use, and, as highlighted by Cooke, ‘Alternative names are an example:- Ebigwala, bigwara , amagwara, magwara, amagwala etc. for the Soga gourd trumpets,’ that make searching on the British Archive, regarding East African music, often a tricky task. In addition, sometimes it is difficult to know, for those who are not experts, exactly how the East African words are spelt: Cooke suggests that ‘a “fuzzy” keyword search facility seems very necessary.’ Moreover, the British Library online archive is difficult to use for Ugandans, as they often experience power cuts, do not have the necessary bandwidth to stream the content and are unable to actually download the material for study. Cooke is well aware of the short falls when it comes to the availability and accessibility of his material, and calls for the improvement of the online facilities available to those who want to share their music.
Finally, Cooke shared his thoughts on the future of archiving African Music, particularly in their country of origin. He gave frustrating examples of tapes being stored in terrible conditions, archives being so disorganised that, even with funding, it would take 20 years to archive properly and equipment being broken because it was not used according to instructions. However, there were examples that gave hope for the archiving of East African music, in Africa; ‘I visited the Ethiopian archives while stranded in Khartoum for four days (by Ethiopian Airways in 1988 I believe) and found […] local scholars, some of them trained in the UK, were doing good work with minimal resources and doing some fine fieldwork with video-cameras.’ He ends with ‘There are plenty of Ugandans who understand the value of a good archives. They need to be able to persuade their government to fund them properly. They also need to pull together.’
- Nearly all of Cooke’s material is available online at the Peter Cooke Uganda Collection, British Library
- There is an archive of his work at the Makerere University in Uganda, which must be listened to onsite. The availability of this archive to the general public is unknown to Cooke (though his concern is that it should be available to everyone)
- His personal website gives details of all published work he has done and where it can be found
- He also has copies of his recordings at the Indiana Archive, Bloomington
S. Nannyonga-Tamusuza, T. Solomon, 2012. ‘Ethnomusicology in East Africa: Perspectives from Uganda and Beyond’. Kampala: Fountain Publishers
With thanks to everyone I interviewed and who kindly helped with any aspect of this article.