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A Summary of Gender Research in Music Education to 1997 Gender issues have been on the agenda of music education researchers since the 1960s, reflecting a field of inquiry that has developed considerably over the last 40 years. Initially, researchers looked at sex differences in musical abilities such as singing, motor, rhythm and listening skills. Researchers expanded this investigation to include sex-stereotyping of instrument and music career choices, finding critical disparity between what boys and girls considered appropriate and desirable. From these studies, the profession branched out into numerous areas of inquiry to investigate further sex-based preferences and skill development, and to develop materials that were responsive to gender issues arising from the research. To understand how sex-stereotyping might be a learned phenomena, researchers studied the representation of males and females in musical materials and text books at all levels. Several areas proved problematic such as the tendency for elementary text books to present women as singers, flutists, and pianists (roles stereotypically perceived as feminine) more often than as composers, percussionists, or brass players (roles stereotypically perceived as masculine). Other researchers criticized college level textbooks for their preoccupations with males to the exclusion of women s contributions. Teachers paralleled this criticism with scrutiny of lyrics to standard classroom music repertoire as being sexist and encouraging narrow, stereotypical images of both girls and boys. To remedy these negative stereotypes, researchers developed materials for the inclusion of and a concentration on women in music. In addition, numerous articles in research and teacher education journals emphasized topics such as women composers; conductors; performers in the classical, jazz, and popular genres; and music academics. These articles include introducing the profession to women left out of history books, the working conditions of women in music, and issues concerning how, historically, women have been excluded from influential and professional levels of music making. Another site for critique has been classroom expectations and interactions both between teachers and students, and between peers in general music and performance ensembles. Research suggests that although girls have better attitudes toward music, boys are more frequently rewarded for their accomplishments. Other research queries have found choral directors preoccupied with low male enrolment and the subsequent perceived repertoire constraints, while band directors tend to maintain a mostly male constituency in the position of band director. With the establishment and success of Women's Studies programs at universities came the addition of gender studies to most academic disciplines. This wide-spread interest created various forms of theorizing based on women's experiences in the world historically, socially, philosophically, scientifically and anthropologically. Further, several strands of feminist theorizing have developed including liberal, social, radical, critical, and post-modern forms of feminism. Each of these political positions have in common a concern for how gender is constructed and the material effects these constructions have on the lives of women, but they differ as they analyze causes and prescribe strategies for liberation. The strength of supporting numerous critiques is that it escapes how narrowly patriarchal constructions of social reality portrays women and men, and seeks to better represent how diversely women and men experience the world. In this sense feminism has resisted becoming a totalizing discourse prescribing only one correct answer, as in the case of patriarchy.
Especially since the 1990s, feminist theory has become part of gender research in music education and has been used in three areas of inquiry:
Second, feminist pedagogy exists in as many forms as feminist theory, and therefore also finds strength in diversity and contradictions. Issues taken up in the various forms of feminist pedagogy include:
The third category, feminist criticism, is based on the notion that men and women have different experiences in the world. Women operate in different spaces, occupations and cultures from men. Furthermore, the institutions and labour market in which women participate are not the same as those in which men participate; there are few positions of power in the female world. Given that men, primarily, have had the privilege to create policy, theories and analysis, it is no surprise that a woman, operating from a different set of experiences in an otherwise shared world, might come up with a different analysis. Generated by women operating from different parts of the profession than men, feminist critiques of the philosophy of music education have provided the profession with alternative viewpoints. In summary, gender research is a developing area of interest in music education. This subject has been the topic of several journals and conferences:
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