Suleika and Hatem revisited: uncovering the material advantages of identifying as a male composer

ABSTRACT

Persuasive arguments have been made for the existence of pedagogical discourses that invoke gender as a factor in the ascription of quality to musical compositions, and previous research has shown that some music teachers ascribe ‘maleness’ to the characteristics that they regard as markers of high quality. Drawing upon Lucy Green's theory of ‘inherent’ and ‘delineated’ meanings in music, the quasi-experimental study reported in this article sought to explore whether problematic and potentially discriminatory associations – specifically between ideas of maleness and the ascription of value – are made in the cultural context of UK secondary schools. This question was explored using a large sample of school-aged participants (n = 950), resulting in a large and statistically powerful data set. Univariate analysis of variance found that respondents were biased in a statistically significant way towards pieces presented as the work of a male composer. The implications of the study's findings for the wider education community are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Music
• gender
• composing
• assessment
• schools

Acknowledgement

A version of this research was presented at a conference of the International Society for Music Education at Porto Alegre, Brazil, on 24 July 2014. Many thanks to Lucy Green and Roberta Lamb for their useful comments and feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Robert Legg is senior lecturer in music education at Victoria University of Wellington.

David Jeffery teaches at Brandlehow Primary School in south-west London.

Notes

1. Names were chosen mindful of the fact that they would unavoidably connote socio-economic, ethnic and religious ideas as well as ideas about gender. ‘John’ and ‘Katie’ were chosen because they are common and therefore widely recognisable names amongst young people in the participant age range.