Music activities in Hong Kong kindergartens: A content analysis of the Quality Review reports Actividades musicales en escuelas infantiles de Hong Kong: Análisis de contenido de los informes de Revisión de Calidad

In Hong Kong, the Education Bureau (EDB) assesses the quality of services provided to children in local kindergartens. Quality Review (QR) reports of kindergartens that pass the assessment are published on EDB’s website. We conducted a content analysis of 164 QR reports to examine the alignment between the music activities alluded to and the curriculum objectives established for music in official policies. A coding scheme was developed using both inductive and deductive approaches. High inter-reliability was obtained. MAXQDA was used to conduct word frequency, descriptive, and co-occurrence analyses. The most common terms identified in the music-related segments focused on children’s development of sensory abilities through music experiences, in relation to singing, rhythm, beat, movement, and instrumental music. However, activities intended to foster musical creativity and selfexpression were seldom mentioned. We conclude that the QR reports reveal important discrepancies between official curriculum policies and actual classroom practices, which EDB assessors seemed to ignore or overlook. Implications focus on the need for kindergarten stakeholders to address curriculum/practice gaps and further prepare teachers to foster children’s musical creativity.


Introduction: Kindergarten education in Hong Kong
In Hong Kong, the term kindergarten is used in reference to preschools for 3-to 6-yearold children. Kindergarten education is not compulsory, yet most children attend center-based programs, either half-day (around 63%) or full-day (37%). Unlike most Western countries but similar to other Asian societies (Kagan, 2019), kindergartens in Hong Kong are operated by private providers and non-profit organizations. A government agency, the Education Bureau (EDB), regulates and subsidizes the local kindergarten sector (Education Bureau, 2021a). In fact, the Kindergarten Education Scheme (2017a) was recently implemented to enhance the quality of kindergarten education across the territory and to provide government subsidies to a large mass of local kindergartens-currently 73% of the total (EDB, 2021b).
All kindergartens under this Scheme are subject to the Quality Review (QR), an assessment mechanism that determines whether (or not) kindergartens will obtain government subsidies. Teams of EDB assessors visit kindergartens for 2.5 to 3.5 days to conduct lesson observations, examine children's work, revise curriculum materials, and interview the kindergarten staff. QR reports are written based on these on-site observations. Those kindergartens that meet the performance indicators (EDB, 2017b) will pass the assessment. Their QR reports are published on the EDB website 3 for public information, aiming to strengthen the transparency of the QR mechanism and disseminate high-quality pedagogical practices across the city (EDB, 2017a).
This study analyzes the feedback pertaining to music education in the QR reports. We believe these reports constitute a large-scale and highly interesting database. Other than providing an excellent window into pedagogical practices within local kindergartens, they reveal the types of pedagogical practices regarded as high-quality practices by the EDB, given that these kindergartens passed the QR assessment. Systematic analyses of these reports are therefore of great interest to various stakeholders (e.g., researchers, teacher educators, curriculum designers, principals, teachers). The Literature Review is structured into two sub-sections. The first one elaborates on the official kindergarten music curriculum in Hong Kong. The second one reviews the international literature on music activities within kindergarten settings.

Kindergarten music curriculum: The case of Hong Kong
Music is a key learning area in kindergarten education, given its multiple benefits to children's holistic development and learning (Cremades et al., 2017;Sullivan, 2016;Young & Ilari, 2019). Western scholars have defined kindergarten music education as the provision of diversified musical experiences for children to learn about musical elements, develop musical skills and dispositions, express emotions and feelings, and stimulate children's imagination (Essa & Burnham, 2019;Moravcik et al., 2013). There is evidence that different types of music activities contribute to fostering specific outcomes in young children. For instance, singing promotes language development (Chen-Hafteck & Mang, 2012); music appreciation can enhance intellectual and creative development (Campbell, 2000); singing action songs, playing musical games, clapping rhythms, and rhythmic movement in groups can generate positive social behaviors (Moravcik et al., 2013); and moving to the beat develops self-regulation and executive functions (Williams, 2018). Well-known Western pedagogical approaches such as Reggio Emilia and Montessori emphasize the importance of music within the early childhood curriculum, highlighting its power to cultivate children's divergent thinking, creativity, and self-expression (Watts, 2018).
Within the Hong Kong context, government-subsidized kindergartens are required to follow the Kindergarten Education Curriculum Guide-hereafter the Guide (Curriculum Development Council [CDC], 2017). The Guide includes music as a subdomain of 'Arts and Creativity'. The three main learning objectives of this learning area comprise: (1) "to develop sensory abilities and accumulate art experiences" (e.g., body movements, singing, music appreciation, rhythm and beats), (2) "to express feelings and unleash creativity through presenting and creating the arts" (e.g., using imagination and expressing feelings through singing and movements), and (3) "to develop creativity through active exploration in art activities" (e.g., improvising and creating on musical elements) (CDC, 2017, p.47). Half-day and full-day kindergartens are expected to allocate 45-60 minutes and 90-105 minutes per day, respectively, for children to participate in arts and physical activities. Teachers are advised to implement sufficient, diversified, and enjoyable music activities on a daily basis.
The EDB published the performance indicators (EDB, 2017b) to assess the quality of teaching and learning in the Guide's various learning areas. The performance indicators pertaining to music involve two domains (Table 1). Focuses on arts and music with specific expectations for children a) develop a different sense to recognize sound, rhythms, clapping, and imitating the sound of nature b) sing songs with movements and play musical instruments c) enjoy the music activities d) experience and express musical elements e) enjoy music performance, dancing, creating, and composing f) create music and self-expression g) appreciate music and express feelings in relation to personal experiences These performance indicators reflect the EDB's perspective of high-quality music pedagogical practices. Note that performance indicators (a) to (d) relate to the first objective of the Arts and Creativity learning area (develop sensory abilities), while performance indicators (e) to (g) put the emphasis on the second objective (express feelings) and third objective (develop creativity through active exploration). This means that local curriculum policies require teachers not only to implement reproductive or routine music activities in the classroom; rather, teachers are also expected to utilize music as a tool to develop an array of skills and foster children's creativity and self-expression (EDB, 2017b). The abovementioned learning objectives and performance indicators are consistent with contemporary curriculum standards and early childhood education frameworks around the world (Campbell & Scott-Kassner, 2019;Cremades et al., 2017). In the next section, we review recent empirical studies that have investigated music teaching practices at kindergartens around the globe.

Music activities in kindergartens: Classroom practices around the world
Research studies conducted in various countries and jurisdictions, including Hong Kong (Lau & Grieshaber, 2018), have reported that kindergarten teachers primarily focus on providing children with music experiences to develop their sensory abilities, including singing, movements, instrumental and integrated activities (Ehrlin & Tivenius, 2017;Stolić, 2015). Singing is the most typical music activity (Pérez-Moreno & Folch, 2019). For example, in the United States, Rajan (2017) found that teachers spend long periods of time singing songs related to shapes, letters, numbers, seasons, and counting, in order to build academic connections between music and other learning areas (i.e., language and numeracy acquisition). In an observational study conducted in Singapore by Bautista et al. (2018), singing and moving to music was the most common combination of activities among various art forms. In particular, teachers were frequently observed instructing children to perform specific movements while singing traditional children's songs. Other prior studies conducted in Sweden and Spain indicated that teachers frequently let children play musical instruments, typically melodic, percussion, and Orff instruments (Ehrlin & Tivenius, 2017;Rodríguez & Álvarez, 2015). However, in Turkey, Ersoy and Dere (2012) found that around half of the teachers did not provide children opportunities to explore instruments due to the lack of instruments in the classroom.
In contrast, activities that involve sound exploration, improvisation, creation, and selfexpression through music are less frequently identified in kindergartens around the world (Bautista et al., 2018;Garvis, 2012;González & Tarrés, 2019). Denac (2008) found that kindergarten teachers in Slovenia spent less than 15% of music education time engaging children in experimentation with sound. In Singapore, Bautista et al. (2018) reported that music activities were primarily reproductive in nature, lacking creative elements and exposure to diversified music genres. A similar issue was reported in Hong Kong a decade ago. Kindergarten teachers mainly emphasized teaching factual knowledge such as musical elements and concepts, rather than using sound and music to unleash children's creativity (Cheung, 2012;Lau, 2006).
Prior qualitative studies conducted in the West have demonstrated how teachers may foster children's musical creativity in kindergarten classrooms, in alignment with contemporary curriculum discourses in music education. For instance, the narrative case study conducted by Schei and Ødegaard (2020) analyzed how young children engaged in a music exploration themebased activity. Children created a story with the teacher's instrumental accompaniment and expressed their feelings by improvising movements in response to the music's rhythm, melody, and mood. Süner and Ünlü (2013) documented how children explored sound and created different instruments by utilizing mundane materials (e.g., create a guitar using waste boxes, rubber strings, and ropes). In Italy, the observational study conducted by Ferrari and Addessi (2014) analyzed how teachers applied the Continuator, an interactive and creative musical system designed to elicit children's thinking on sound. Findings showed that this technological tool could further cultivate children's interest in exploring musical elements.
Our review of the international literature reveals the existence of important research gaps. First, prior studies focusing on the enactment of music curricula are mainly qualitative and conducted with relatively small samples of participants (e.g., González & Tarrés, 2019;Süner & Ünlü, 2013). Hence, large-scale quantitative studies are needed. Second, some prior studies are not specific to music but integrate other art forms such as visual arts, drama, and dance (e.g., Bautista et al., 2018). More music-specific research is therefore required. Finally, existing studies on how Hong Kong kindergarten teachers implement the music curriculum are limited and relatively outdated (e.g., Chan & Leong, 2007). Updated studies are essential to better understand how recent curriculum policies are being enacted on the ground.

Goals
This study presents a content analysis of the QR reports focusing on the music activities implemented by Hong Kong kindergarten teachers. We had two specific research goals. Goal 1 was to examine the presence of music in the QR reports, focusing on the most typical lexicon (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) and the frequency of key terms related to the various music objectives, as stated in local policies. Goal 2 was to analyze the types of music activities and the most common combinations of musical contents alluded to in the reports.
Our ultimate purpose was to assess the correspondence between the music activities implemented by teachers on the ground and Hong Kong local curriculum policies, as specified in the Guide's learning objectives (CDC, 2017) and the performance indicators (EDB, 2017b). Findings can inform kindergarten stakeholders (curriculum designers, principals, teacher educators, professional development providers) about the types of music activities that teachers tend to do less in class, hence revealing the areas in which teachers need the greatest support.
The significance of the study and its interest for an international audience, especially for Western countries in Europe and America, lies in its potential to illustrate the unique characteristics of childhood education systems in Asia. Most Western countries are developing public kindergarten systems, training teachers up to the degree level, and advocating for pedagogies that are child-centric, play-based, and characterized by high-quality teacher-child interactions (Kagan, 2019;Torres et al., 2022). In contrast, the kindergarten sector in Hong Kong is run by private providers, with most teachers trained up to the higher diploma level (2 years of post-secondary education), and even though the curriculum Guide advocates for Western theories and practices, kindergartens continue to enact teacher-centric and content-focused teaching approaches . Readers in Western countries will therefore benefit from learning about music education practices in a different socio-cultural setting.

Data analysis and sources
Content analysis is "a research method for the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns" (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005, p.1278. A content analysis was conducted on all the QR reports available since 2017 (year in which the new curriculum Guide was launched) up to 2020 (year in which this analysis was conducted). The number of kindergartens represented was 164 (approximately, 16% of the total number of kindergartens in Hong Kong). More specifically, we included one QR report published in 2017 (0.6%), 33 in 2018 (20.1%), 122 in 2019 (74.4%), and eight in 2020 (4.9%). These reports covered kindergartens in different geographical areas of Hong Kong, thereby providing a holistic picture of the music curriculum across the territory.

Procedure
First, ethical approval was obtained from the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) at the authors' University. Then, a four-stage process was employed to ensure the validity and reliability of the analysis.
Stage 1: Literature review. A detailed review of the local and international literature was conducted to provide us with a better understanding on the trends and standards of the music curriculum and practices in kindergarten settings. This allowed us to identify relevant themes pertaining to music activity types in kindergarten classrooms.
Stage 2: Develop the coding scheme. The QR reports were downloaded from the EDB's website and imported into MAXQDA Analytics Pro (VERBI Software, 2019) for data analysis. The authors applied both inductive and deductive approaches (Creswell, 2018) to develop a coding scheme. We first utilized open coding, as an initial interpretive process to identify common themes that emerged in the reports. Then, we added other codes gathered from the international and local literature (e.g., Other sound producers [Refsum, 2007]). The coding scheme was presented in a table format which contained the definitions, examples, and counterexamples for each code. Key illustrative examples were extracted from the QR reports. Codes were binary (i.e., Yes vs No), capturing whether the report mentioned this type of music activity or not.
Stage 3: Piloting of coding scheme. The coding scheme was validated by the authors and one student helper. The scheme was first piloted by selecting 35 reports randomly. Definitions, examples, and counterexamples were refined. While we explored various conceptual frameworks of music activities (Denac, 2008;Van Vreden, 2016;Zadnik & Habe, 2017), the low number of references to certain activities in the QR reports led us to collapse related activities and/or elements under the same code. For example, activities related to music composition and improvisation were both condensed under the code Musical Creativity. Inter-rater reliability was 0.95, as measured by Cohen's (κ) kappa, which indicated that the coding scheme had sufficient reliability.
Stage 4: Final coding. The first author (Coder 1) trained a student helper (Coder 2) to be familiar with the coding scheme. Then, both coders analyzed all the reports independently. Disagreements were resolved through discussion until 100% agreement was reached to ensure the reliability and consistency of the coding and assessment process (Boettger & Palmer, 2011).

Data analysis
To address Goal 1, we first analyzed the amount of text (mean number of words, SD, minimum, and maximum) related to music in the QR reports. Descriptive statistics of the most common lexicon were performed to examine the 60 most typical nouns, verbs, and adjectives within the music-related segments. This was supplemented with a word cloud generated by Word Art, intended to offer a visual representation of the findings. To address Goal 2, we used descriptive statistics (frequencies and percentages) to examine the kinds of activities that appeared in the QR reports. Literal examples were used to illustrate the analytic codes. Furthermore, a code co-occurrence model was generated to examine the most common combinations of musical contents alluded to in the reports. Common phrases among the co-occurring codes were shown as examples.

Goal 1: Overall presence of music in the QR reports
In total, the 164 QR reports included 2,225,589 words. Each report had an average of 13,571 words (SD = 1066.49), with a minimum of 11,185 words and a maximum of 16,679 words. Segments pertaining to music were identified in 162 reports (98.78%). Only two reports, both published in 2019, did not include any music-related content. The music segments covered 109,155 words in all reports, with an average of 665.58 words per report (4.84% of the total content, on average), ranging from 0 words (0%) to 2,422 words (17.84%) per report. Table 2 presents the 60 most common words within the coded segments. Irrelevant words including conjunctions (e.g., and, because), prepositions (e.g., in, to), and pronouns (e.g., they, many) were excluded from the analysis. Terms in different grammatical numbers (e.g., child, children) or tenses (e.g., learn, learns, and learning) were considered the same word. Words are sequenced according to their frequency (from highest to lowest) and presented based on word types (i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives). Moreover, the table shows the mean and maximum number of times each word appeared per report, and the number and percentage of QR reports (n = 164) in which each word appeared in the music segments. A word cloud (see Figure 1) was generated using Word Art 4 to visualize the most common 60 words within the music segments. To facilitate the readers' interpretation, the words' size was determined by their frequency within the reports (i.e., larger represents a higher frequency). Besides, we used different colors to represent the different types of words (i.e., nouns are in blue, verbs in red, and adjectives in green).  Table 2 and Figure 1, the most typical words identified in the music-related segments were nouns (31), followed by verbs (20), and then adjectives (nine). The most frequent words were generic teaching and learning terms, for example, nouns such as "child", "activity", "school", "teacher", "free", "choice", verbs such as "learn", "provide", "design", "engage", and adjectives such as "daily", "sufficient". While the word "music" was mentioned in 162 reports (98.78%), the presence of music-specific terms (e.g., "song", "melody", "beat", "percussion", "create") was low overall, which each term only appeared in below a quarter of the reports. The most prevalent music-specific terms were in relation to sensory abilities development through music experience, such as "instrument", "rhythmic", "sing", and "movement". However, none of these terms appeared in more than half of the reports. Furthermore, terms related to musical elements (e.g., "rhythm", "melody", "beat") were seldom mentioned, with less than one-fourth of the reports. Note that only two terms related to the music learning objectives-expressing feelings through music (i.e., "express") and developing creativity through active exploration in art activities (i.e., "create") were identified in the most common lexicon. Yet, both "express" (22.56% of the reports) and "create" (12.8%) were infrequently mentioned. Apart from the terms in the most common lexicon, we identified some even more rarely mentioned words such as "emotions" (7.32%), "expression" (1.83%), "improvise" (0.61%), and "exploration" (0.61%). Surprisingly, terms strongly linked with creativity such as "experimentation", "improvisation", "invention" did not even appear within the music segments.
Interestingly, we found that certain terms related to music rarely appeared within the music segments, although they did frequently appear in other parts of the reports. Some examples pertaining to the area of creativity include the words "creativity" (64.02% of the QR reports versus 7.93% within music segments), "imagination" (43.90% versus 8.54%), and "creation" (36.59% versus 1.22%). Pertaining to the area of self-expression, similar findings were identified for the words "feeling" (44.51% versus 6.71%), "expression" (43.90% versus 1.83%), and "emotions" (29.27% versus 7.32%). Overall, this word frequency analysis revealed that kindergarten teachers did not seem to emphasize creativity and self-expression while teaching music to young children.

Goal 2: Types of music activities
A coding scheme with 13 analytic codes (see Table 3) was designed to analyze the types of music activities alluded to in the reports. Note that Table 3 only presents each code's definitions due to space restrictions, while the examples are introduced in the body text. Table 3. Coding scheme for music activity types in teachers' pedagogical practices, as described in the QR reports Other sounds producers References to producing sound with resources other than conventional instruments, for example body, eco-friendly instruments, nature, and/or technology Theme-based activities References to theme-based activities that integrate music with other learning areas, scenarios, and/or stories Self-expression References to self-expression of feelings, emotions, and/or ideas through music and/or in response to music Musical creativity References to exploration, experimentation, improvisation, invention, and/or creativity with music and/or sound Others References to generic music activities or elements not captured in the above categories Each report alluded to 2.88 codes on average (min = 0, max = 11, SD = 2.58). Figure 2 presents the frequencies and percentages for each code within the QR reports. The most frequently mentioned music activity was Singing (50% of total reports) (e.g., "singing", "sing along with music", "sing nursery rhymes", and "sing the melody of songs"). This was followed by Rhythm and Beat (43.3%) (e.g., "beating time to the music", "learn beats through demonstration", and "feel the change of rhythms"), Movement (42.1%) (e.g., "make body movements", "engage in rhythmic movements", "perform rhythms and melodies through body movements", and "actions songs"), and Instrumental Music (33.5%) (e.g., "instrumental playing", "playing musical instruments", and "playing percussion instruments").
Certain music activities were mentioned in just a handful of the reports (between 15% to a quarter). These included Theme-based Activities (22.6%) (e.g., "design theme-related music activities and link up different music sessions with scenarios" and "the school arranges Cantonese opera activities for each class once a week as integrated music and physical play activities"), and Music Games (20.7%) (e.g., "integrate different games into music activities" and "incorporate the play elements in music activities"). This was followed by two codes that obtained the same percentage: Music Appreciation / Listening (15.2%) (e.g., "music appreciation", "song appreciation", and "guide children to listen to music"), and Melody (15.2%) (e.g., "identify different parts of the melodies", "follow the melodies to perform rhythmic movements", and "sing the melody of songs").
The remaining categories, which mainly related to creativity and self-expression, were mentioned in a very low percentage in the reports (less than 15%). These included Musical Creativity (10.4%) (e.g., "create new words and actions to songs in order to unleash their creativity", "improvise lyrics", and "create simple and fluent melodies"), and Self-expression (9.8%) (e.g., "express their feelings freely through music and rhythmic movements" and "dance or move according to the rhythms of the music to express their feelings freely"). This was followed by Other Musical Elements (9.1%) (e.g., "flexibly introduce different musical elements, "pitch exercises", and "identify when the music starts and rests as well as its high and low pitches"). The least-mentioned category was Other Sound Producers (2.4%) (e.g., "eco-friendly musical instruments").
In Figure 3, a code co-occurrence model was produced using MAXQDA to depict the most common combinations of musical contents alluded to in the reports. This model allowed us to visualize the number of times the various codes co-occurred in the reports. The thickness of lines connecting the codes is determined by the frequency of co-occurrence. The minimum cooccurrence frequency was set as 20 reports. Because the codes Self-expression, Musical Creativity, Other Musical Elements, and Other Sound Producers did not meet the minimum cooccurrence frequency, we excluded them from the co-occurrence model. Code co-occurrence is described from the highest to the lowest frequency. Excerpts from the QR reports in which two (or more) musical contents co-occurred are presented for illustrative purposes. As shown in Figure 3, the code Singing was strongly associated with Rhythm and Beat (53 reports), Movement (53), and Instrumental Music (41). Movement was intensely associated with Rhythm and Beat (61), as well as Instrumental Music (38). For example, "children follow melodies to perform rhythmic movements and manipulate musical instruments together", and "teachers arrange activities such as singing, playing percussion instruments and music appreciation to guide children to move their limbs in response to the rhythms and melodies of music". Theme-based Activities was moderately associated with Singing (22 reports), Rhythm and Beat (21), and Movement (21). Examples involving these four musical contents were: "teachers use stories to stimulate children's imagination, enabling children to engage in movements along with the rhythms and melodies while expressing emotions through body movements", and "teachers create scenarios in accordance with themes to conduct music games, so as to guide children to exercise their imagination and perform rhythmic movements by following the music". This analysis shows that many teachers tended to implement similar combinations of musical contents within the QR period, probably given their higher confidence in conducting these activities.

Discussion
We have provided an overall account of the types of music activities conducted in 164 kindergartens that had successfully passed the QR assessment in Hong Kong. Accordingly, our discussion below is based on the understanding that the music teaching and learning practices described in these reports had been endorsed by the EDB.
Goal 1 was to examine the presence of music in the QR reports, focusing on the most typical lexicon and the frequency of key terms related to the various music objectives, as stated in local policies. We found that the presence of music was minimal (average of 4.84% of total content). Indeed, relatively speaking, music-specific terms were rather infrequent. Furthermore, terms related to musical creativity and self-expression (e.g., "emotions", "expression", "improvise", "exploration", and "experimentation") were either rare or completely absent. The minimal presence of music in the QR reports may be due to multiple factors. First, teachers possibly did not allocate sufficient time for music activities during the QR assessment period. Hong Kong is a competitive society, where parents often demand teachers prioritize academic learning areas to prepare children for Primary school (Chan, 2019;Gopinathan & Lee, 2018). Another possibility is that the EDB assessors could have paid more attention to other learning areas (i.e., language or mathematics) in lieu of music, which would indirectly reveal that the government also views music as a secondary or supplementary learning area. Similar findings have been reported in other Asian countries such as Singapore (Bautista et al., 2016), and even in Western countries like the United States (Nardo et al., 2006) and Sweden (Ehrlin & Tivenius, 2017). Finally, it could be the case that the primary purposes of using music in Hong Kong kindergartens are those of greeting children (e.g., singing welcome song, weather song), classroom management (e.g., getting children's attention), arranging transitions and circle time, and supporting the learning of other curriculum areas (Barrett et al., 2018;Rajan, 2017), and thus EDB assessors did not pay explicit attention to these uses of music in their written feedback. All these factors, independently or in combination, could help us explain the limited presence of music activities in the QR reports.
Goal 2 was to analyze the types of music activities and the most common combinations of musical contents alluded to in the reports. Teachers heavily focused on conducting activities related to the first objective of the Guide, which deals with the development of sensory abilities (CDC, 2017). Specifically, our results indicated that singing, rhythm and beat, and movement were the concepts most frequently mentioned. Nursery rhymes were the most typical song type alluded to, as found in other international studies (Ehrlin & Tivenius, 2017;Rajan, 2017). Playing instrumental music was another typical music activity, which suggests that Hong Kong teachers do not face the issue of instruments deficit in the classroom, as reported in countries like Turkey (Ersoy & Dere, 2012). Moreover, similar to trends in Singapore (Bautista et al., 2018), teachers commonly combined four music contents during the QR period, namely singing, rhythm and beat, movement, and instrumental music. In a nutshell, the music activities conducted in Hong Kong kindergartens mainly focused on providing children with experiences to learn musical skills and/or factual knowledge, which mirrors trends identified in the territory more than a decade ago (Chan & Leong, 2007;Cheung, 2012).
Our findings suggest that Hong Kong kindergarten teachers may not sufficiently implement music activities related to objectives 2 and 3 of the Guide, which relate to selfexpression and creativity (CDC, 2017). The music activities described in the QR reports did not explicitly allude to children's self-expression of feelings and emotions, exploration, experimentation, improvisation, invention, or creativity with music or sound. Children seem to be hardly ever given opportunities to produce sound with resources like their own bodies, ecofriendly instruments, sounds of nature, or using technology, in contrast to prior studies that have clearly demonstrated the value of such sound exploration activities to provoke children's creative thinking (Ferrari & Addessi, 2014;Süner & Ünlü, 2013). Note that similar trends have been identified in other countries, including Slovenia (Denac, 2008), Australia (Garvis, 2012), and Singapore (Bautista et al., 2018). It is therefore concerning that kindergartens might not fully utilize the power of music as a medium for communication and exploration (Moravcik et al., 2013).

Conclusions
In summary, our evidence shows important discrepancies between Hong Kong local music education curriculum policies and actual practices in local kindergartens. Our first conclusion is that the EDB assessors seemed to have ignored or overlooked these important curriculum/practice discrepancies, particularly regarding the limited use of music to foster children's creativity and self-expression. Note that these 164 kindergartens had passed the QR assessment, which means that the EDB assessors endorsed the quality of their pedagogical practices. We infer that the EDB assessors could have superficial understandings of the meaning of high-quality music education practices, perhaps due to their limited training (Bautista et al., 2022) or due to the lack of concrete examples provided in the Guide (CDC, 2017). The situation is concerning because this misleading feedback could result in a dangerous vicious circle: kindergarten practitioners may receive the message that their music pedagogical practices are of high-quality, when in fact they are clearly insufficient to fulfill the official curriculum objectives, thereby perpetuating poor music practices.
Our second conclusion is that Hong Kong kindergarten teachers seem to treat music as a secondary learning area, using it to manage classroom routines and transitions and to teach about other areas, but seldom implementing activities purposefully designed to foster children's musical creativity and self-expression. Indeed, we hardly identified references to music activities involving sound exploration, free vocalizations, or improvisation, as suggested in the literature (Schei & Ødegaard, 2020;Siebenaler, 2006). This might be due to two challenges that Hong Kong teachers are currently facing: they receive insufficient pre-and in-service preparation in music education and, consequently, they have low confidence and limited competencies to teach music to young children (Bautista & Ho, 2021). This reveals the need to support Hong Kong kindergarten teachers regarding musical creativity and self-expression to ensure they can design, implement, and evaluate these activities in classroom settings.

Limitations and future research
Despite the large number of kindergartens included in our content analysis, the study has certain limitations. First, the low presence of music content in the QR reports does not necessarily mean that teachers neglect music in their usual classroom practices. Indeed, perhaps teachers focused less on music during the QR observation period to satisfy other expectations or requirements. Further investigations of teachers' music pedagogical practices are therefore needed. Additional large-scale studies should be conducted based on other data sources such as classroom observations, interviews, and analysis of curriculum materials. Second, the QR reports represent the EDB assessors' perspectives on high-quality music pedagogical practices. Future research should explore the perspectives of other kindergarten stakeholders such as kindergarten teachers, principals, and teacher educators. Finally, the QR reports only focus on kindergartens that joined the Kindergarten Education Scheme (2017a) to receive government subsidies. International kindergartens were therefore excluded from the present analysis. Future research must explore whether the trends reported herein are generalizable to international kindergartens, which are not subject to the QR exercise.

Practical implications
The first implication relates to the need to raise awareness of kindergarten stakeholders (including EDB assessors) about the official expectations for high-quality music education. Being aware of the curriculum/practice discrepancies is vital for improvement. In particular, we recommend that the curriculum designers further clarify the official expectations by exposing the EDB assessors to concrete examples of internationally-recognized high-quality music pedagogies, especially regarding musical creativity and self-expression. When the assessors conduct on-site QR observations in the future, they should be more mindful of the various learning objectives and performance indicators pertaining to music teaching and learning in local policies. By increasing awareness and preparation, the EDB assessors would be able to provide relevant advice for kindergarten practitioners to improve their music practices, thereby bridging existing curriculum/practice gaps (Barrett et al., 2018).
The second implication relates to the need for ongoing professional development (PD). Teacher educators and PD providers should offer kindergarten teachers additional support on musical creativity and self-expression. For instance, it is vital to engage teachers in training that enables them to conduct music activities that are open-ended (e.g., sound exploration, experimentation, improvisation, invention), while at the same time considering the constraints related to time and resources in local kindergartens. This is consistent with a previous local interview study where teachers expressed a high demand and motivation to participate in PD courses focusing on activity design, curriculum integration, and musical creativity (Bautista & Ho, 2021). By providing kindergarten teachers with responsive PD music experiences, they will be able to better plan and implement their music lessons more strategically, ultimately reinforcing the quality of music pedagogical practices that benefit children in the long run (Campbell & Scott-Kassner, 2019;Cremades et al., 2017).

Financiación y agradecimientos
This study was supported by the project "Arts and Creativity in Hong Kong Kindergartens: Towards Glocal Pedagogies" (grant number 04592) funded by the Department of Early Childhood Education at The Education University of Hong Kong. The views expressed herein are the authors' and do not necessarily represent the views of their institution.