The changing economic, social, cultural and technological circumstances in which children live impact significantly on the ways in which early childhood is both viewed and experienced. Understanding the implications, the potentials, the challenges that arise as a consequence of the diversity and technological changes that characterise contemporary childhoods is crucial for early childhood researchers and educators. Conventionally, music education research has focussed on the details of practice and children's musical behaviours drawing on traditions of developmental psychology. It has been insufficiently interested in wider social and cultural processes. The questions this article debates are largely prompted by the relatively new field of childhood studies; strongly sociological and anthropological in orientation. To illustrate its arguments, the article discusses two recent research projects: a study of young children's musical activity in the home focusing on their use of karaoke and a practice-based project in early childhood centres serving British Muslim communities.