Boys' and girls' constructions of gender through musical composition in the primary school

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to examine, through interviews and observations, the extent to which 8–10 year old children in a London primary school replicate gendered musical practices and experience gendered musical meanings, and how these may affect their expectations and the specific practices and products of their composition. I also consider how primary school teachers participate in the overarching discourse on gender and music education, by examining their expectations about the nature of girls' and boys' compositions. I analyse my findings in relation to Lucy Green's model of gendered musical meaning and experience. One outcome of the analysis is the development of a concept of ‘female musical subculture’ to interpret girls' and women's participation in the compositional world. Secondly, the findings strongly suggest that in their musical practice, the children in the research are not reproducing ideological assumptions about gendered musical practices, which contradicts how they operate discursively, for their discourse lies within the bounds of gendered musical ideology. Thirdly, the findings also indicate that the teachers are strongly affected by gendered musical ideologies, and have concomitant expectations about the music girls and boys produce.