In a world in which gender equality issues have
been prominent since the late 1960s and with musical education initiatives that
promote student autonomy and choice (e.g. Musical Futures) one might expect to see secondary school
students choosing which instruments they would like to learn without any
gendered preference. Nevertheless, there is still much debate about how the choice
of instrument is made and whether this a gendered decision. Should parents and music teachers encourage
girls to play the tuba or boys to play the piccolo? Or do children and adolescents themselves
display gendered preferences for specific types of musical instruments, perhaps
influenced by their peers? If so, what challenges do these encultured choices
pose for music educators in secondary schools?
Research has suggested that boys tend to choose larger, lower-pitched instruments and
girls smaller, higher-pitched instruments. This may be familiar to many music educators in primary
and secondary education, where the choice has typically included Western
classical and pop instruments. However, in a new study, Steven Kelly and Kimberly VanWeelden explore
possible gender associations with world music instruments. They asked 455 middle and high school
students on a music summer camp to classify ten world music instruments as
feminine or masculine on a 10-point Likert scale. Musicians were split into
three groups: one group listened to 45 second clips of each instrument being
played a cappella; the second group were shown photographs of each instrument
and the third group received audio and visual information about the
instruments. The authors found that both boys and girls identified larger
instruments such as the Kora and the Zheng as masculine, although the Sitar,
despite being large, was only moderately perceived as being masculine. They
suggest that one factor influencing student perceptions may be the existing
enculturation of gendered choices about Western musical instruments in the USA.
This, they point out, means that music educators seeking to lead world music in
secondary school settings should be vigilant in developing teaching strategies
which avoid cultural stereotypes and gendered choices about which instruments
male and female students play.
In a second study, Elizabeth Wrape, Alexandra Dittloff and Jennifer Callahan
ask whether trends have changed in the choice of musical instruments in middle schools in the USA. The researchers wanted to find out whether
choices of instruments mirrored existing gender-stereotypes, whether these
stereo-types became more rigid as students matured and whether the gender of a
student influenced the way in which they categorised instruments. The students
were given a simple choice: is this instrument
a boy or a girl instrument?
The findings confirmed previously noted trends: the tuba was perceived to be a boy instrument and clarinet and flute were seen as girl instruments. Overall, students with
more in bands described trombone, trumpet and French horn as boy instruments, whilst bassoon and oboe
were described as girl instruments.
However, among the girls with more
experience, there was a strong view that trombone and French horn were girl instruments. Interestingly, the younger students were less
likely to make gendered judgements about their choice of instruments. As other
researchers have found, this study confirmed that instrument choices may also be influenced by peer pressure from classmates. Contrary to the authors’
optimism that gender-stereotyping in the choice of musical instruments may not
be as prevelant as shown in earlier studies, this study showed that whilst
younger students are more open-minded about instrumental choices, gender
stereo-types become more apparent as students mature. The question then remains – what should
middle school band leaders and instrumental teachers do – if anything – to try
and reduce this gender-stereotyping?
So what happens when students enter higher
education? Are musical instruments perceived with similar connotations of
gender? Lisa Stronsick, Samantha Tuft, Sara Incera and Conor
McLennan set out to investigate how female undergraduate students in a US
Department of Psychology perceived
timbre and pitch of nine instruments. Instruments were grouped into threes based upon prior
research and described as masculine, neutral or feminine. Participants listened
to phrases on each instrument and indicated on a slider controlled by a mouse
where they placed the instrument on a male-female continuum. Interestingly, the
research team discovered that these female participants were more likely to
rate masculine instruments more towards the feminine end of the continuum if
they heard high pitched sounds. The authors suggest that this could be
explained by the fact that female participants may be more responsive to high
pitched sounds. This points towards an important conclusion that gender ratings
of musical instruments may be flexible, based upon the gender of participants
in the study. In the context of secondary education, one possible implication
may be that students should be encouraged to listen carefully to both the pitch
and timbre of instruments before making choices about which instrument they
wish to play.
Another quite different view, not expressed by
any of the authors above, might be that more role models are needed of both
sexes to demonstrate that musical instrumental choices do not need to be
associated with gender, but rather with a love of learning to play a musical
instrument.
Monica Esslin-Peard, University of Liverpool
Following the completion of her PhD in July
2017, Monica joined the Department of Music at the University of Liverpool, UK,
as Lecturer in Performance. She teaches on the undergraduate and masters
programmes, focusing on performance, style and authenticity, pedagogy and
conducting. Her research interests include reflective practice in musical
learning, cross-cultural learning with Chinese students and popular music
pedagogy.
I wonder if any of your readers might be interested in (or offended by -- just as good) my casual theory of the invalidity of musical performance -- https://pessimisticshrink.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-falseness-of-music.html. -- Fred
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