576941

research-article2015
CUS0010.1177/1749975515576941Cultural SociologyReeves

Article
Cultural Sociology
1­–22
‘Music’s a Family Thing’: © The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/1749975515576941
Parental Transference cus.sagepub.com

Aaron Reeves
University of Oxford, UK

Abstract
While parental encouragement or parent-led consumption transmits cultural practices from
parents to children, the reasons parents provide regarding why they encourage cultural
engagement remains unclear. Using music as a case study, and through analysing semi-structured
interviews, this research explores how parents express and actualise their desire for their
children to learn to play a musical instrument. Results suggest that respondents do not strongly
associate musical practice with developing valued character traits nor with social or educational
attainment. Instead, parental encouragement to play music is shaped by family ties and the
parental perception of ‘natural’ talent in their children. Parental perception of natural talent is
most common among parents who themselves play an instrument and among those parents who
play music with their children. Family and musicality are the most commonly cited reasons for
encouraging music and these are found among all educational groups. Without dismissing the
importance of social position, this evidence suggests that parents articulate their preferences
toward musical participation in terms of familial cohesion and shared identity.

Keywords
music, musical, musicality, musical instrument, talent, class, consumption, child, children, cultural
participation, family, socialisation, education, concerted cultivation, UK

Introduction
Some parents actively encourage cultural practices among their children by arranging
music lessons, gallery visits or dance classes (Lareau and Weininger, 2003). Others do
not (Lareau, 2003; Scherger and Savage, 2010). Differences between these two sets of
parents are not solely due to personal preferences. Whether or not parents encourage
their children to participate in cultural activities is closely associated with social position

Corresponding author:
Aaron Reeves, Department of Sociology, University of Oxford, Manor Road Building, Manor Road, Oxford,
OX3 1UQ, UK.
Email: aaron.reeves@sociology.ox.ac.uk

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2 Cultural Sociology 

(Bennett et al., 2009; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990; Skeggs, 2004). Economically privi-
leged parents are far more likely to encourage their children to participate in cultural
activities than parents from less privileged backgrounds. Although such differences may
seem innocuous, they are an important component of the ‘cultural politics of class’
(Lizardo and Skiles, 2012; Savage et al., 2010). Parental encouragement to participate in
specific activities as a child increases the likelihood (in many cases) of cultural participa-
tion as an adult (Nagel, 2010; Nagel and Ganzeboom, 2002; Oskala et al., 2009) which,
in turn, influences hiring decisions (Rivera, 2012), access to higher education (Stevens
et al., 2008), and broader social and economic inequalities (Lamont et al., 2014).
Yet why these social class differences between parents exist remains unclear. Some
argue that parents consciously select strategies that will increase the social mobility of
their children (Lareau, 2003) while others suggest that cultural decisions are practice-
based, emerging from habits and dispositions (Lizardo and Skiles, 2012). Using semi-
structured interviews, this research explores how parents express and actualise their
preferences toward their children learning to play a musical instrument, while also exam-
ining important features of the family-culture dynamic in relation to social position. In
doing so, these parents provide one perspective on both the processes through which
cultural differences are reproduced (e.g. conscious or unconscious cultivation) and also
the motivations rhetorically linked with cultural participation (e.g. strategy or habit).
Understanding this intergenerational transference of cultural dispositions will illuminate
how parents articulate their own efforts to inculcate particular cultural practices, while
pointing toward how social inequality is reproduced (Nagel, 2010; Nagel and Ganzeboom,
2002; Oskala et al., 2009).

Literature Review
Encouragement and Parent-Led Consumption
The recent availability of nationally representative surveys of cultural engagement has
increased interest in how cultural practices are transferred to children through parental
encouragement or parent-led consumption (Oskala et al., 2009; Scherger and Savage,
2010).
Oskala et al.’s analysis is based on data from the 2005/2006 wave of the Taking Part
survey with a sample of ~13,500 English adults (aged 16 years or over). Children who
were encouraged to participate by their parents and who were taken to cultural events by
their parents while ‘growing up’ (aged 12–15 years), are more likely to be active arts
consumers when they are adults. Parental encouragement also interacts with education:
a graduate who was also taken to arts events as a child would have a 7% greater chance
of attending arts events as an adult than a graduate who was not taken to those events.
High social status parents are also more likely to encourage their children to participate
and to take them to various cultural activities than are low social status parents (Chan and
Goldthorpe, 2007). Oskala et al. also find parents are more likely to encourage or culti-
vate arts attendance among girls than boys.
Scherger and Savage’s (2010) paper explores the association between the transmis-
sion of cultural capital (in the form of specific cultural practices) and the reproduction of

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Reeves 3

class positions. They show that the effect of parental class position on educational attain-
ment is mediated through the transmission of this kind of cultural capital (see also
Sullivan, 2001). Those children who receive this high level of cultural socialisation are
also more likely to be upwardly socially mobile and are less likely to be downwardly
mobile (Lahire, 2010). Both of these papers emphasise the continuity between parental
efforts to cultivate cultural engagement in the past and the patterns of cultural practice
among respondents in the present. Yet neither of these papers speak to what motivates
parents to encourage their children to, for example, play a musical instrument.

Social Stratification and Cultural Engagement

Although neither of these studies of UK parent–child associations explicitly discuss the
motivations of parents to encourage cultural engagement, they still have potential impli-
cations for such work. For example, if cultural engagement is perceived as a catalyst for
upward social mobility, a constraint on downward mobility, or a reflection of social posi-
tion, then parents might draw on notions of social position in order to frame their desire
for their children to learn to play a musical instrument. Of course, it is unlikely parents
will directly address social position in quite these terms, but they may use concomitant
themes; that is, what motivates parents to encourage music might be a common feature
among those in similar class positions. Parents who connect music (or other cultural
activities) with some form of utility other than the act of playing itself (such as develop-
ing character traits, accruing social status or pursuing educational attainment) could be
implicitly advocating a social mobility perspective (Skeggs, 2004).
This connection between social position and cultural preferences is not new (Reeves
et al., 2015). For Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 1984; Bourdieu and Passeron, 1990), cultural
engagement was an important correlate of social position and this theme has been
expanded in subsequent research (Lareau and Weininger, 2003; Skeggs, 2004). While
cultural practices are not a prerequisite for most occupations, they provide a form of
bridging capital (e.g. homophily) that allows access to particular social positions (Rivera,
2012). Homophily refers to the practice of individuals seeking out and enjoying the com-
pany of those who possess similar interests (McPherson et al., 2001). In educational
settings, students who possess similar cultural codes to their teachers have a higher like-
lihood of educational success (Dumais, 2006; Sullivan, 2001), while in occupational
settings cultural practices may signify a sense of identity (‘that she is one of us’) within
particular occupational groups (Rivera, 2012). Through these mechanisms, cultural
engagement contributes to social inequality and parents, by cultivating cultural practices,
play an important role in transmitting this bridging capital.

Concerted Cultivation and Natural Growth

The central focus of this paper is whether parents use social mobility or other motiva-
tions to articulate why they try to cultivate musical practice in their children (Lareau,
2003; Lareau and Weininger, 2003). The key question under examination here is: what
are the reasons that parents offer for why they encourage musical practice? While being
culturally active may increase educational attainment (Dumais, 2006; Sullivan, 2001) it

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4 Cultural Sociology 

is not self-evident that parents actively make that association when they talk about their
own motivations.
Middle-class parents in the United States do associate cultural practice with these
other forms of utility, such as developing specific character traits and facilitating educa-
tional success (Lareau, 2003). Through her concepts of concerted cultivation and natural
growth, Lareau (2003) provides a framework for understanding how middle-class and
working-class parents in the US articulate their desire to encourage music participation.
Middle-class families are very often marked by a pattern of ‘concerted cultivation’,
where parents organise music-centred activities for their children, often in addition to
school-based musical practice.1 Working-class families are characterised by an emphasis
on ‘natural growth’ where music was not a primary concern and, if it happened at all, any
music training usually occurred at school.
But why this concern with music? In part, Lareau attributes this focus on cultivating
cultural engagement to parental anxiety over the ‘declining fortunes’ of educated
Americans. These parents have become increasingly worried about providing their chil-
dren with skills and aptitudes enabling them to stand out from their competitors in the job
market. These parents associate musical practice with increasing the possibility of educa-
tional success. Parents also believed that music developed desirable character traits, for
example, ‘confidence’, ‘poise’ and an openness to new experiences (Lareau, 2003). The
utility of music is not located in the practice itself, but in its capacity to increase the likeli-
hood of educational success and also cultivate other valuable character traits.
Reay (1998), Irwin and Elley (2011) and Ball (Reay and Ball, 1997; Vincent and Ball,
2007) highlight similar concerns among British parents. Although economic conditions
in the US and the UK have not been the same (Gorard and Adnett, 2007), the marketisa-
tion of British education has increased parental anxiety regarding educational success
(Reay and Ball, 1997). Hence it is unsurprising that playing an instrument per se is not
directly important to parents, but rather it is the ‘“stretching” and “development” of the
child that is of principle significance’ (Vincent and Ball, 2007: 1074). Similar educa-
tional anxieties may lead parents to associate music practice with dispositions and vir-
tues that are not directly linked with the practice itself, but which are educationally, or
even perhaps occupationally, desirable (Vincent and Ball, 2007).
Although there are differences across class positions in the UK regarding parental
occupational aspirations for their children, there is not the same level of homogeneity
within classes that Lareau observes in the US. As such, it is unlikely that associations
between educational success and cultural practice will be made so explicitly by British
parents (Irwin and Elley, 2011). Savage et al. (2010) have observed that Britons tend to
dis-identify from class positions. Class dis-identification occurs when people recognise
class distinctions but are also reluctant to classify themselves as being a member of a
particular social class (Skeggs, 1997). Even though middle-class families do not univer-
sally experience class anxiety, few Britons express ‘great pride in being middle class’,
and instead they tend to ‘resist middle-class identities’ (Savage et al., 2010: 68, 70) and
place a high value on being ‘ordinary’ (Savage et al., 2001). While some families hold a
much greater assuredness over the inheritance of advantage (Irwin and Elley, 2011), it is
still unlikely that British parents will ground the musical participation of their children in
terms of educational success because of the stigma attached to social aspirations. Instead,

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Reeves 5

parents will draw on other values, which may be linked with concerted cultivation (such
as growth or openness), to explain their efforts to encourage music participation.
One dimension which has received somewhat less attention is the role of family.
Much of the previous discussion has focused on articulating conscious strategies through
which parents can increase the life chances of their children, and yet these narratives fail
to capture the habitual or dispositional dimension of cultural practice which might be
grounded in the structural locations of families (Lizardo and Skiles, 2012). For example,
Coulsen’s analysis of musicians in the north-east of England reinforces the importance
of parental transference and cultural socialization, suggesting even amateur musicians
may associate musical practice with family (Coulsen, 2010). Similarly, there is some
evidence that children develop a positive self-image with respect to music if parents
already possess that perception of their children (Torche, 2007). Large-scale individual-
level surveys have found that parents who share musical practice with their children are
statistically more likely to recall their parents sharing music with them (Berlyne, 1974).
This stream of research in music education shows music practice is very often embedded
within a broader familial identity. Music participation as a product of family, background
is, of course, grounded in the structural location of the family and highlights the impor-
tance of early development rather than current social location (Lizardo, 2004).
While highly educated and high social status parents are more likely to encourage
their children to participate in music, it is not clear how parents will articulate their
efforts to cultivate musical participation. Parents may not explicitly connect music prac-
tice with social position (e.g. educational attainment), but they may associate it with
particular values, such as openness or growth (Vincent and Ball, 2007). Additionally, the
importance of family in music transference is likely to be observed. In the following sec-
tion I will outline the analytical approach taken in this paper.

Method
Data
Data for this research are drawn from the Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion (CCSE)
research project which was sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council
(ESRC). It was conducted under the guidance of a team of researchers primarily based at
the Centre for Research on Economic and Social Change (CRESC) and the Open University.
The aim of the research was to provide a systematic exploration of cultural tastes and cul-
tural capital in Britain (Bennett et al., 2009). There were three phases to the project. Phase
one consisted of 25 focus groups and phase two was a cross-sectional survey administered
to 1791 people in the UK aged 18 or over. The last phase involved re-establishing contact
with some of those respondents from phase two to conduct semi-structured interviews and,
if possible, their partner. In the third phase there were a total of 44 interviews, 30 of which
were originally involved in the survey while the remaining 14 were partners. The inter-
views from phase three are the primary data source for this research. Respondents chose
their own pseudonyms which have been used in the descriptions below.
Of the 44 interviews, 20 were with men and 24 with women (Silva, 2005). Of the 30
households, 16 of them had dependent children under the age of 16 years. Some of those

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6 Cultural Sociology 

who did not have dependent children had non-dependent children, and pertinent data also
emerged in these conversations. Of the 44 interviews, 26 involved parents who discussed
their children, constituting a form of sub-set analysis (19 households) (see Table 1 for
more details of respondents).

Secondary Data Analysis

The inception of the Qualidata archive at the University of Essex has encouraged second-
ary analysis of qualitative data and fostered important debates regarding practical and
epistemological issues (Irwin and Elley, 2011). There are important limitations with all
forms of secondary analysis, both quantitative and qualitative (Heaton, 2004). For exam-
ple, secondary data analysis relies on the quality of the archived data, and requires a
degree of congruence between the new research questions and the research questions
motivating the original data collection (Kiecolt and Nathan, 1985).
Data for this research were prepared following guidelines laid down by the ESDS
Qualidata archive. The dataset contains transcripts for all interviews and each transcrip-
tion was checked by the interviewer. Low sound quality in one of the interviews meant
there were some missing data but this did not affect the section of questions analysed as
part of this research. The meta-documentation produced by the principal investigators is
comprehensive.
Because the CCSE data were originally collected to explore cultural tastes and con-
sumption in the UK, including music, they are ideally suited to explore these research
questions. Two sets of questions are particularly relevant: 1) musical preferences and 2)
parental feelings and desires concerning their children playing a musical instrument. In
the first set of questions on the musical preferences of the respondents, the person being
interviewed frequently discussed their own music practice and also the musical activities
of family members. In the second set of questions, the respondents were asked to reflect
on whether it was important for them that their children played a musical instrument.
These data were not examined in any detail in Bennett et al.’s published research (2009).
Because the analysis is, in one sense, supplemental to the original research project, exter-
nal validation has been sought by sharing a manuscript copy of this article with one of
the principal investigators (PIs) who subsequently encouraged publication.
One challenge with the CCSE data is the choice to distinguish degrees of cultural capi-
tal on the basis of educational attainment (Bennett et al., 2009). The PIs categorise those
who have obtained five GCSEs grades A*–C or no qualifications as ‘low cultural capital’;
those who have A Levels, a Higher National Diploma (HND) or equivalent as ‘medium
cultural capital’; and those who have a university degree or higher as ‘high cultural capi-
tal’.2 The PIs recognise education is an imperfect measure of cultural capital, but it is also
one of the strongest predictors of highbrow cultural participation and also omnivorous-
ness (Reeves, 2014), suggesting education is a useful proxy for cultural capital.

A ‘Framework’ for Analysing Interview Data

The analytical approach adopted in this research has been inspired by ‘Framework’,
which was developed by the members of the Social and Community Planning Research
Institute (SCPR) (Ritchie and Spencer, 1994). ‘Framework’ focuses on the work of

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 Reeves

Table 1.  Descriptive characteristics of the interviewees.

Respondent name M/F Ethnicity Cultural Occupation Parent plays Child plays Partner
capital music music
Low cultural capital  
Naomi Bryant F Afro-Caribbean Low At home mother X X Tony Norris
Tony Norris M White Low Warehouse manager Naomi Bryant
Shanaz Ahmed M Pakistani Low At home mother X Ferhan Ahmed
Ferhan Ahmed F Pakistani Low Driving instructor (part-time) X Shanaz Ahmed
Surbhitra Gopal F Indian Low School dinner supervisor (part-time) X X Nimesh Gopal
Nimesh Gopal M Indian Low Catering supervisor X X Surbhitra Gopal
Majid Raza M Indian Low Retired shop owner  
Margaret Staples F White Low Disabled care assistant X X Frank Staples
Frank Staples M White Low Farmer X X Margaret Staples
Medium cultural capital
Elleray Lancaster M White Medium Bar manager X Helen Lancaster
Helen Lancaster F White Medium Supermarket worker X X Elleray Lancaster
Karim Rashid M Pakistani Medium Health and safety Consultant  
Sandra Edwards F Afro-Caribbean Medium At home mother  
Joe Smith M White Medium Site foreman Edie Smith
Edie Smith F White Medium Accounts clerk (part-time) Joe Smith

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Hilda McGee F White Medium Shop assistant  
Jane Shaw F White Medium Retired  
(Continued)
7
 8

Table 1. (Continued)

Respondent name M/F Ethnicity Cultural Occupation Parent plays Child plays Partner
capital music music
Janet Taggart F White Medium Probation service manager X Gerry Taggart
Gerry Taggart M White Medium Police officer X Janet Taggart
Molly McNab F White Medium At home mother/unemployed X  
Sally Ann Lewis F White Medium Retired  
Rachel Griffiths F Mixed Race Medium Administrative officer  
High cultural capital
James Foot M White High University drama lecturer X X Susan Foot
Susan Foot F Indian High Hospital consultant (Doctor) X James Foot
Jenny Hammett F White High Creative writing tutor (part-time) X Dougie Hammett
Dougie Hammett M White/Scottish High Senior chemist X Jenny Hammett
Rita McKay F White/Scottish High Secondary school teacher (part-time) Too young Ali McKay
Ali McKay M White/Scottish High Sales representative X Too young Rita McKay

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Vasudev Rehman M Indian High Business owner X  
Cultural Sociology 
Reeves 9

Table 2.  Outline of final coding framework.

Themes and Sub-Themes  
Family practice Both parents play Child plays How many children play
  One parents plays Practices (out of school)
  Extended family Did play, but not now
member plays (out of school)
  Played in past At school
  What instrument Child wants to play
  Instrument
Cultivate Explicit encouragement  
  Parent purchase Parental desire Explicit desire
instrument Implicit desire
  Shared practice Explicit ambivalence
  Implicit ambivalence
Natural Child’s interest  
determines
  Innate talent Musical preferences Name bands
  Child desire: parent Articulate preferences
ambivalent origins of music taste
  Child not interested Need to know more
  Intra-genre distinctions
Why desire music? Good skill  
  Family-connection Peers Play with friends

‘detection’ by ‘defining, organizing, theorizing, explaining, exploring and mapping’

(Ritchie and Spencer, 1994: 309). Although I came to the data with broad conceptual
questions, it was through the process of familiarisation (where I read through each inter-
view several times) that I was able to refine these questions. Throughout my first reading
of the transcripts, I listed initial ideas and recurrent themes. Subsequently, I revisited this
list of themes and ideas, and began to formulate a thematic framework which expanded
on the questions I had identified and theoretical concepts available in the existing litera-
ture (Table 2). For example, codes were created for whether the parents encouraged
musical practice, whether they paid for music lessons, or whether parents allowed their
children to make decisions about their musical practice. Other categories were also added
to the framework, including those relating to whether family members played musical
instruments, the parental attitude toward music consumption, and to music participation.
Therefore the framework was guided both by the theoretical concepts in the existing lit-
erature, but it also incorporated themes emerging from these data. In the process of
applying this framework to these data, it became evident that some of the categories
which I had originally devised were not completely adequate and that the framework
needed to be revised. For example, some respondents described extended family mem-
bers (aunts or uncles) who played musical instruments, and these were sometimes a
distinct influence on the musical practice of the home. In response, I allowed these famil-
ial differences to be more finely specified within the coding framework.

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10 Cultural Sociology 

Through indexing the interviews, a number of key themes became apparent.

Subsequently I examined key associations between these features of these data by, for
example, tracing the connection between educational attainment among parents and atti-
tudes toward music participation. Like Irwin and Elley (2011), I sought to identify excep-
tions to the general picture which emerged from the analysis. Below I discuss the role of
family and education in connection with the views of parents toward music participation.
Analyses were conducted in NVivo.

Results and Discussion

In line with previous research, parents who are graduates were more likely to encourage
music than those who had not been to university (Oskala et al., 2009). However, in
almost all cases, if music was explicitly desired by parents, it was grounded in familial
association or was practiced for its own sake. Social position or cultivating desirable
character traits were rarely discussed. Among these respondents music moves through
family (Coulsen, 2010). Those parents who actively encouraged music participation per-
ceived their children as ‘musical’,while those parents who were explicitly ambivalent
about music framed their ambivalence in terms of a lack of musicality in both themselves
and their children (Torche, 2007). First I discuss the evidence for the role of familial
associations in music transference, then I discuss the association with musicality, and
finally I turn to the association with educational attainment.

Family, Education and Music

Parents encourage their children to play musical instruments, and yet it is not clear how
and why they make this effort. The parents interviewed here did not connect music with
utility but rather they implicitly focused on the value of music as a family tradition and,
to a lesser extent, as something valuable in its own right. If a respondent played a musical
instrument themselves then, in every case, at least one of the children, for a period of
time, played a musical instrument. Further, at least one of the children played a musical
instrument (for a period of time) if the respondent had an extended family member who
also had played a musical instrument.
For Molly McNab (51, female, medium cultural capital) music was part of a family
tradition. After observing that both Molly’s daughter and her granddaughter played the
fiddle, the interviewer asked:

Interviewer: Was music always part of your life growing up in your own family?
Molly: It was yes
Interviewer: Were there musicians in the family?
Molly:  My father and my brothers now they would have been quite keen. The
three of them would’ve played together. They played the accordion
and the fiddle. So there was always dancing and Irish dancing.
Interviewer: It was just part of life.
Molly: It was just everyday life
Interviewer: Has that changed then down the years? Is that traditional music not the
same as it used to be?

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Reeves 11

Molly:  Now it is the same like, there is traditional music still going here you
know.
Interviewer: It’s still the same for the young ones? It’s still important?
Molly: Yes, yes.
Interviewer: So there isn’t a sense of loss or ..?
Molly: It’s not lost no, it’s not lost.

Playing musical instruments moves through families, and it does so as a way of forging
cohesive communities and familial associations (Shepherd, 2003: 258). This is observa-
ble in families where parent and child engage in shared practice. All but one of the
respondents who played a musical instrument explicitly referred to shared musical prac-
tice with their children. Parental encouragement to play a musical instrument comes
directly through parental participation with the child. In these families, music serves as a
marker of identity. It becomes a sign of who the parents believe they are, a sign which is
then shared with their children (Stokes, 1994: 3).
Yet there is one possible exception to this association. One parent suggested that
music participation might be a useful skill. Ali McKay (31, male, high cultural capital),
who has very young children, spoke about music in the family in this way:

Ali:  They don’t really have homework. Music, we will encourage in the
future any preference they have we will hopefully help support it. Very
keen to promote it.
Interviewer: Why music?
Ali: Some music involved in the family, I think it’s a great skill to have.
Interviewer: Was that your family or yours and Rita’s?
Ali: Both sides, both sides.
Interviewer: So that’s something that you want to try and encourage?
Ali: Yeah, definitely encourage, yes.

No other respondent connected learning to play a music instrument with this kind of
explicit utility. Moreover, because Ali did not elaborate on what he meant by ‘skill’ and
in what context this skill would be ‘great … to have’, it is difficult to draw out firm con-
clusions regarding what this might reflect. This comment is ambiguous and difficult to
interpret.
In contrast to these families where music is highly valued, there are families where
playing a musical instrument is not considered important. In these families, music is
perceived to be an obstacle to educational success, or at least ancillary to it. Elleray
Lancaster (40, male, medium cultural capital), the husband of Helen Lancaster, had the
following exchange with the interviewer:

That’s not something that’s particularly important for you that they
Interviewer: 
learn music?
Elleray:  Not really, no. Not really. Again if they – next year if you asked me
that same question next year, the lad could want to play the guitar or
have learned to play the guitar, it could be a different scenario but right

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12 Cultural Sociology 

now, they’re behaving at school they’re achieving their grades so, the
teachers are happy with them so – just keep on that wavelength.

Elleray explicitly positions musical practice as something extraneous to academic suc-

cess, and sees the potential for music to become a distraction from his children’s work at
school. Again and again parents expressed strong feelings about reading with their chil-
dren and assisting with their school work, whilst expressing ambivalence toward music.
Naomi Bryant (33, female, low cultural capital) demonstrated this perspective.

Interviewer: 
How important is it for you that he does well at school, both your kids
do well at school?
Naomi:  Yeah, I want them to, I would like them to, because obviously where
I’ve been in life I don’t want them to be like I am, slow at reading and
that, I want them to a good job [missing word in transcript]. I think
that’s what it’s all about and his dad’s really bright and obviously he
wants them to get a good education anyway so I just want him to get
down to his work and get a good job and give me some money!
[Laughs] I’m kidding!
Interviewer: 
In the survey you said that you were involved in musical activities
with the kids. Do you do that or –
Naomi: No, in the house?
Interviewer: 
Do they learn any musical instruments or anything like that?
Naomi:  No, my son was gonna do the drums but I dunno, it’s too noisy, I didn’t
let him get it in the end but my son, no he’s not into anything at the
moment …

Both of Naomi’s children had expressed an interest in pursuing musical instruments, but
she had been ambivalent about this interest. In contrast, she was very keen to encourage
reading and school work.
In general, Lareau’s work suggests that parents ‘were scarcely aware that they were
orienting their children in specific ways’ (Lareau, 2003: 239), and yet some of the par-
ents in her study were able to consciously articulate the significance of cultivating these
talents. They observed that music participation builds ‘confidence’ and ‘poise’. Further,
they also suggested that it exposes their children to a variety of influences with the result
that they are more open to various experiences. Similarly, according to Vincent and Ball
(2007), British parents pursue cultural engagement as a means of stretching or develop-
ing the child. These themes are noticeably absent in these interviews. Rather than music
having socio-economic utility, it appears that playing a musical instrument provides a
sense of social cohesion to the family (Torche, 2007).

On Being ‘Musical’
Parents often embed their narratives about music and encouraging their children to par-
ticipate in the context of family by establishing a line of innately ‘musical’ family mem-
bers (Torche, 2007). Notably, respondents who believe their children to be musical are

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Reeves 13

also those who have engaged in shared musical practice with them. In addition, the origin
of musical talent or preference was a recurring theme through the interviews. Thus while
some parents described their children and themselves as being ‘musical’ (Nimesh Gopal,
60, male, low cultural capital), others did not. Reflected in these responses is the notion
that musicality is somehow innate and, simultaneously, that it is transferred through
families.
Following Lareau, discussion of an innate propensity for music might be anticipated
among those families who raised their children through the logic of the ‘accomplishment
of natural growth’, but the opposite is the case. In fact, those parents who speak of their
children as being ‘musical’ are often most likely to be those who strongly encourage their
children, who play musical instruments with their children, and for whom music is still
an important part of their own identity. Frank (35, male, low cultural capital), who is cur-
rently the leader of a brass band, who plays the horn and the cornet, and whose father
could play the violin, the mandolin, and the piano, observes that: ‘on my mother’s side
of the house now there was no music in her’. Yet, whilst speaking of his daughter, Frank
notes that ‘she’d be the same, yeah, musical’. Similarly, Nimesh Gopal, who currently
plays the piano accordion and used to perform regularly at social functions, observes,
after being asked whether he encouraged his children to play musical instruments: ‘Yes,
my daughter was a bit musical like me, I bought a violin for her, when she was about
eight, ten years.’ Parents who actively cultivate musical ability in their children are also
those who are most likely to perceive musicality in their children.
In contrast, for Sally Ann Lewis (75, female, medium cultural capital) music was
evidently not a large part of the family life, even though she appeared to be an avid music
consumer. The following exchange highlights the opposite perspective, that those who
did not appear to concertedly cultivate musical ability were less likely to see that capac-
ity innately within their children.

Interviewer: Did you want them to have music, you know, like music?
Sally Ann: No, neither of them are musical, no.
Interviewer: They didn’t play the piano or do those sort of things?
Sally Ann: No, my husband wasn’t a bit musical.

Sally Ann’s response highlights the connection between the musicality of parents and
children. When the interviewer probes for more detail regarding whether the children
played a musical instrument, Sally Ann responds by speaking about her husband’s lack
of musicality. This absence of musicality seems associated with both the fact that there is
no indication of any effort being made by the parents to actively encourage musical par-
ticipation, and that none of her children play(ed) any instruments.
Helen Lancaster (42, female, medium cultural capital) provides the only possible
exception. Although both she and her parents played musical instruments, after being
asked whether her children play any musical instruments, Helen remarks that, ‘No.
We’re not a very musical family’. Despite being encouraged to play various instruments
as a child, Helen believes that she was not talented musically. Thus Helen’s inability to
claim a ‘musical’ identity may be associated with why she does not see her children as
musical and why she does not now encourage them to play.

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14 Cultural Sociology 

How can we account for this association between concerted cultivation and parents
who see their children as innately possessing (or not possessing) a particular trait that
they (do not) possess? It is possible that some of these parents exaggerate the abilities of
their children (Lareau, 2003), but this is precisely what is interesting about this pattern.
Why are parents potentially exaggerating the talents of their children in ways that reflect
their own talents, or the talents of their parents? Lareau’s research indicates that parents
who raise their children according to the logic of concerted cultivation are also more
likely to provide them with a ‘sense of entitlement’. For Lareau, this entitlement is in part
focused on the way in which children interact with institutions, but it also refers to how
children pursue their preferences. In this context, Lareau’s ‘sense of entitlement’ can
explain how parents who perceive themselves and their children as lacking musicality
are forging a sense of constraint that will potentially limit their expectations. A parent
who is not musical and who also shares that sense of constraint with their children, will
likely find that their children do not learn to play a musical instrument. In contrast, par-
ents who perceive musicality in their children are inculcating within them a sense of
entitlement with regards to music, and their children are potentially more likely to play a
musical instrument in the future.
Shared musical practice might be one way that parents foster this sense of entitlement
and through which they come to perceive their children as musical. These children are
apparently (and at least partially) adopting their parents’ conception of them as musical,
at least while they are still young. As suggested in research from the field of music edu-
cation, this conceptualisation would become clear to a child if the parent attempts to play
music with that child. This is not to suggest that children are determined by their parents’
perception, as Lahire (2010) points out. Yet, with that caveat, the data indicate that this
sense of innate musicality certainly shapes the experience of childhood years, and may
also influence adulthood.

Concerted Cultivation, Natural Growth and Cultural Capital

Although family appears to be the primary mechanism through which musical participa-
tion is structured, there are some important patterns across the different categories of cul-
tural capital. These data suggest that those in low cultural capital families have a mixture
of influences (family and other), that medium cultural capital families do not value music
and do not encourage it, and that high cultural capital families are very likely to encourage
their children to play musical instruments.

Low Cultural Capital.  There are eight individuals (five families) who are described as pos-
sessing ‘low cultural capital’; those who have obtained five GCSEs grades A*–C or no
qualifications. Out of these five families, four have children who have played, or who
now play, a musical instrument. The solitary exception is Majid Raza (68, male, low
cultural capital), whose interview, according to the interviewer, was ‘fraught’. In con-
trast, every other family with low cultural capital had a child who played a musical
instrument. Having already discussed those with music in the family, attention here will
focus on those whose children play an instrument but for whom there is no familial
encouragement or musical environment.

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Reeves 15

In these families, where is this drive coming from? It is not coming from the parents
or other family members. Ferhan (male, 44, low cultural capital) and Shanaz Ahmed
(female, 42, low cultural capital) have very little interest in music and may even oppose
it. Both are explicitly ambivalent about music in the lives of their children, and Ferhan is
unaware that one of his daughters has begun teaching herself to play the keyboard. The
father’s lack of awareness reveals this ambivalence regarding the role of music in the
house. Naomi Bryant (female, 33, low cultural capital), who has two sons and lives with
her partner (Tony Norris, 36, low cultural capital), is also somewhat ambivalent. After
being asked whether her children learn any musical instruments:

Naomi:  No, my son was gonna do the drums but I dunno, it’s too noisy, I didn’t
let him get it in the end but my son, no he’s not into anything at the
moment. Keyboard but no they’re not, I want him to get the drums still
but it’s gonna be too noisy in the house. But my son does rap music
round the corner somewhere, I don’t know who the man is, he’s sup-
posed to be some famous man he said, and he goes there once a week
so he does it there, because he’s good at doing his words or whatever,
he does that there. I haven’t been there yet so – no, they don’t do any
music.
Interviewer: 
Would it be important for you that they learnt a musical instrument?
Naomi:  It would be nice, now you’ve just said that, that would be nice. My
little son’s just turned five and I want him to do the guitar because his
uncle does it and his uncle said he will teach him the guitar because
I’ve got one – instead of sitting busted over there, I’ve got an electric
one and I still can’t play it so if he can get him to do that, that will be
nice. But it’s up to him.

Naomi agrees that playing a musical instrument is important but only after the inter-
viewer suggests it. She demonstrates little interest or knowledge of her son’s current
practice. In fact, it appears that her desire for her youngest to play guitar is motivated by
her brother. Finally, Naomi observes ‘But it’s up to him’: the mantra of parents who pur-
sue the logic of natural growth. The child is the source of their own interests and because
parents are not actively cultivating these interests in their children, it is increasingly
likely that other people or institutions will have an impact on the musical development
of the child. In families with low cultural capital, children still come into contact with
musical instruments. Either their families have a tradition of music or something external
to the family brings this interest, such as peers.

Medium Cultural Capital.  There are 11 individuals (nine families) who are described as
possessing medium cultural capital: those who have A Levels, a Higher National
Diploma, or equivalent. Out of these nine families, three have children who have played
a musical instrument. Yet, only one respondent in this group explicitly encourages their
children to play an instrument.
Elleray (40, male, medium cultural capital) prioritises school over other activities
and views learning to play a musical instrument as something which will obstruct (or at

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16 Cultural Sociology 

the least distract from) educational success. At the same time, he expresses a commit-
ment to letting the children decide. He explicitly rejects the cultivation model. Helen
(42, female, medium cultural capital), Elleray’s wife, agrees that they are ‘not a very
musical family’. The children ‘had a go at the recorder, as you do and the violin’.
Despite Helen’s musical background and some musical experience at school, she is
ambivalent about the music participation of her children. In contrast, when asked
whether it is important that the children can read, Helen responds with an emphatic
‘Yes! Yes!’.Helen and Elleray reflect a unified commitment to education; a commitment
which supersedes music participation.
Although one of his sons has played the guitar, Gerry Taggart (43, male, medium
cultural capital) is another example of this ambivalent approach to music that draws on
the logic of natural growth.

Interviewer: And did you do things like encourage them to play musical
instruments?
Gerry:  Certainly they went through phases as such, and we said if they want
to do that, go for it, we would help them out as such.
Interviewer: Would they have private lessons or anything like that?
Gerry:  We certainly at one stage we were looking at doing that. As you men-
tioned with the lads with homework as such, at one stage we got a
maths tutor for one of the kids because he was struggling a wee bit so
we got a maths tutor to come in and do some stuff.
Interviewer: What about when they learnt to read, did you get involved in helping
them to read?
Gerry:  Oh yes, again it’s the after dinner type thing isn’t it, have the kids there
and just doing something as a family.

Likewise, Rachel Griffiths (no age, female, medium cultural capital) wants her daughter
to ‘try as much as she can so that she can find out what she likes and then what she wants
to pursue’. In contrast, when it comes to Rachel’s daughter’s school work, she sits down
with her and works through it.
The respondents with medium cultural capital do not value music participation and
they are more committed to natural growth with respect to music. Yet when it comes to
education, they are much more concerned with cultivating success.

High Cultural Capital. There are seven individuals (four families) who possess a high
level of cultural capital: those who have a degree or higher. Only one of these respond-
ents does not explicitly describe their efforts to encourage music participation among
their children, although they are trying to negotiate attendance at a Saturday club for
their child. Only one family does not have any children that currently participate in
music, and that is because their children are too young. In short, those with high cultural
capital are the most likely to say that their children play a musical instrument and also to
encourage their children to play.
Those with high cultural capital appear to wrestle with the practical implications of
concerted cultivation. Often this leads respondents to mix the rhetoric of concerted

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Reeves 17

cultivation and natural growth. Rita McKay (33, female, high cultural capital) combines
these two approaches when she recognises that ‘both the children like music’, but that
she also wants to help them ‘get into different types of music as well’ by exposing them
to various different styles. Likewise, Dougie Hammett (50, male, high cultural capital)
mixes cultivation and natural growth.

Interviewer: Are there any other important activities that you are keen for your
children to be involved in, and if so, what are they, something that you
try and nurture in them or influence them in any way.
Dougie:  Not really because they tend to choose their own interests, I mean
we’ve got two that are learning musical instruments … They don’t go
to any organised activities apart from the two that do music at school.
Oh and they do badminton one night a week as well but that was
because they wanted to do it.
Interviewer: The view is that they’ve got the interests and they take them as far as
they want to take them.
Dougie: Yes.
Interviewer: And it grinds to a halt, c’est la vie.
Dougie:  Yeah, well if we think it’s maybe worthwhile for them to keep on we
try and encourage them but we wouldn’t force them because there just
isn’t much point in doing that.

Parents with high cultural capital struggle with the appropriate limits of encouragement,
versus allowing their children to flourish according to their own interests, more than do
parents from either of the other two social positions.
The Foot family provide an additional illustration. Susan Foot (38, female, high cul-
tural capital) like other respondents already cited, negotiates this tension while talking
about her daughter: ‘we did start taking Sadie to music lessons when she was little. But
again, I just felt like that was sort of hot housing her a bit and, so we stopped that’. Her
husband, James (38, male, high cultural capital), who used to be a music teacher observes
that during the time he was a piano instructor he was advised: ‘Don’t take them [clients]
on under seven. You’re taking money off the parents for old rope.3 Don’t do it.’ Yet,
James still took his daughter to piano lessons when she was four years old.
The struggle of the Foot family (and others) resonates with those in Lareau’s study
who criticised other parents that ‘forced’ unhappy children to pursue cultural activities
that were important to the parents. The key difference is that Lareau’s American parents
recognised that this approach (although ethically questionable) would ‘pay off job-wise’
(Lareau, 2003: 251). Rather, for these British respondents, no such connection was made
between what is perceived as an overbearing parenting style and future educational or
career possibilities.
Taken together, these results suggest low cultural capital families do not highly value
music participation, unless there is a pre-existing family connection. Parents remain
ambivalent regarding music but their ambivalence does not restrict music participation if
the children are keen. Medium cultural capital parents actively discourage music partici-
pation because they are so concerned with cultivating educational success. High cultural

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18 Cultural Sociology 

capital families cultivate both educational success and musical ability. Whilst acknowl-
edging the limitations of sample size, these findings suggest, consistent with Lareau, that
natural growth in general is more common among families with less education while
concerted cultivation is more common among families with more education. Further,
these results also suggest the type of concerted cultivation (e.g. education only or educa-
tion and music) may vary depending on the degree of cultural capital possessed by the
parents.

Conclusion
The central concern of this paper has been articulating the reasons parents provide
regarding why they encourage their children to play musical instruments. In addition, I
have examined how these patterns are associated with parental educational attainment.
Drawing strong inferences from this small sample to the general population is not pos-
sible and more research is needed. Yet these results still speak to three broad sociological
themes. First, the nature of music participation in the UK; second, the field of cultural
socialization generally; and third, implications for social inequality.
British parents who encourage their children to play musical instruments often articulate
that support as an effort to forge family cohesion. They do not appear explicitly to value
openness or growth in the same way that other (e.g. American) parents have, but these
parents do see music as fostering family identities. These interviews support work in the
field of music education (Coulson, 2010). While it is more common to find the concerted
cultivation of music practice among the (upper) middle classes it is not the sole province of
these respondents, for it is also found among families with little cultural capital.
Further, there is a connection between concerted cultivation and parents who see their
children as innately possessing (or not possessing) a particular trait that they (do not)
possess. Again, these results reinforce other research which has examined the narratives
of family and music. A parent who is not musical and who shares a sense of constraint
regarding music with their children, will likely find that their children do not learn to
play a musical instrument. In contrast, parents who perceive musicality in their children
are inculcating within them a sense of entitlement with regards to music, and these chil-
dren are potentially more likely to play a musical instrument. This provides one potential
mechanism for the process of parental transference, described in other research (Nagel,
2010; Nagel and Ganzeboom, 2002), through which parents cultivate music participation
in their children. At the same time, it also suggests that family is both a motivating factor
for, and also the vehicle of parental transference of, cultural practice.
These findings shed light on the ‘cultural politics of class’ and in particular how social
location informs and shapes cultural practice (Lizardo and Skiles, 2012; Savage et al.,
2010). These findings undermine the view that reproduction of cultural difference is a
deliberate strategy of social advancement, even though these actions are not consciously
chosen (Lizardo and Skiles, 2012). Rather, they emphasise the practice-based develop-
ment of values and dispositions, which are reflected in perceived ‘musicality’ or in the
importance of music to family cohesion. While these dispositions may serve to repro-
duce cultural difference, they are not actively intended to increase the likelihood of social
mobility.

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Reeves 19

Yet what is less clear from these data is whether these same patterns occur in other
cultural practices. For example, are parents who encourage their children to paint, paint-
ers themselves? Are parents who paint more likely to see their children as ‘artistic’?
Certainly there is some evidence that such associations exist, for example, elite black art
collectors encourage children to become engaged with collecting, and so more work is
needed to explore these links (Banks, 2012). Additionally, while recognising that the
notion of ‘family’ does not possess a static meaning, there is a need to unpack the inter-
section between social position and cultural engagement in light of different conceptions
of ‘family’. Another important area requiring further study is whether the types of cul-
tural activities parents cultivate are classed. For example, are parents in privileged social
positions more likely to encourage the piano but not the electric guitar? Future research
also needs to explore gender differences in cultural socialization and the language used
to describe concerted cultivation of music participation. Finally, there is a need to under-
stand why concerted cultivation tends to be education-focused in some families and to
incorporate education and culture in other families.
There are a number of important limitations to this study. First, generalising these
cross-cultural comparisons from the few cases discussed here would be unwise. This is
particularly important with respect to the variations across people with differing levels
of cultural capital. Despite limited observations, these findings are strikingly consist-
ent and are suggestive of important distinctions in how parents view and use music.
Second, the meaning of music participation is likely genre specific. Music participa-
tion may be viewed positively if it involves the piano but less so if it involves the
drums. This is potentially important because these activities are themselves classed.
Exploring instrument-specific dynamics in the context of concerted cultivation will be
an important extension of these ideas in future work. Third, interview data with parents
discussing their children may be subject to issues to do with the presentation of socially
desirable traits by interviewees, and therefore fail to accurately reflect what parents
actually do. In this instance, such bias may be useful rather than problematic, because
it is more likely to capture the values of these parents with respect to music. Fourth,
using education as a measure of cultural capital does not map perfectly onto the divi-
sions of social class used in previous studies, such as Lareau’s examination of con-
certed cultivation. Despite this inadequacy, Lareau’s ‘middle-class’ respondents are
university graduates and her ‘working-class’ respondents are not. Therefore, although
the typology is slightly different, they are in practical terms quite similar. Fifth, one of
the consequences of the limited sample is that it is not possible to disentangle the
implications of race or ethnicity from those of social class. Although respondents were
ethnically mixed at every level of education, more research is needed to unpack these
dimensions in greater detail. Finally, the limitations of the data mean it is not possible
to examine other forms of concerted cultivation, such as sport. While music is a crucial
feature of concerted cultivation, these other dimensions are also important in the repro-
duction of social inequality. More work is needed to place these findings around music
in the broader context of concerted cultivation more generally.
There are parents who encourage music participation and there are parents who do
not. While there is little evidence here that parents associate music with cultivating desir-
able traits or with other forms of social achievement, it is clear that those who encourage

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20 Cultural Sociology 

music do so for reasons related to familial identity and because they perceive their chil-
dren (and themselves) to be musical.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to the Economic and Social Research Council for funding this research. For helpful
comments and advice, I thank Nick Allum, Malcolm Brynin and the anonymous reviewers.

Funding
This research is funded by a grant from the Economic and Social Research Council [ES/I902341/1].

Notes
1. In the only family (‘Stacey Marshall’) where there was only one musical activity, a youth
choir, Stacey had been playing the piano until just prior to the study. Her older sister was still
playing regularly. No further details are given regarding why this change had occurred, but
it is worth noting that the family had previously been as heavily involved in music as all the
other middle-class families.
2. GCSEs are General Certificates of Secondary Education which are based on exams taken
at the age of 15–16 years, at the end of the period of compulsory education. A Levels are
Advanced Levels. These post-secondary qualifications, usually taken when the student is 17–
18 years old. HNDs are Higher National Diplomas, which are vocational or semi-vocational
qualifications that are equivalent to an associate degree in the US.
3. ‘Money for old rope’ is an English idiomatic phrase which means money for something that
is worthless.

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Author biography
Aaron Reeves is a senior research fellow in the Department of Sociology, Oxford University. His
is a sociologist with interests in public health, culture, and political economy. His work involves
examining the causes and consequences of social, economic, and cultural inequity in Europe and
North America.

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