Music teachers' constructions of gender in elementary education

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Downloaded by [ ] at 06:52 16 November 2011 Music Education Research 15 in a particular way (the deep voice of the adult male). This account provides some indication of the sensitivity surrounding discussing issues of gender specifically in relation to boys. On the one hand, Denise took care to portray the boys’ comments as isolated events; yet she also describes boys’ discomfort with singing. In some of the excerpts quoted above, gender was identified by teachers as an irrelevant concept that is ‘invisible’ (i.e. there are no differences between boys and girls and teachers describe treating students equitably). In other accounts, differences were noted between boys and girls, even while teachers resisted the urge to generalise or typify usual practices. One teacher described the problems for boys of the associations made between ‘singing’ and ‘femininity’; while another teacher described the problems for a male teacher encountering the association between ‘elementary teaching’ and ‘femininity’. It is to this topic that we now turn. Issues specific to male teachers in the elementary school Male teachers are minorities within the female-dominated world of the elementary school. In spite of calls for the recruitment of more male teachers, in the USA, numbers of men in teaching have been steadily declining: 21% of K-12 schoolteachers were men in 2003 (Fratt 2004), decreasing from 25.1% in 1999 2000 (Shen, Wegenke, and Cooley 2003). Brian ended his career as an elementary music teacher, when after six years’ teaching; he took a position as a choral director in a middle school. When asked if he had ever been treated differently because he was male, Brian replied that he had, stating that in three different job interviews for positions as an elementary music teacher he had been asked if he was married. I wanted to teach elementary school when I first started. So the position I applied for, I was asked some questions that were not only illegal, but inappropriate. Maybe inappropriate, and illegal. One of the questions I got notoriously from the beginning was ‘Are you married?’ And finally I cornered one of the principals, ‘Why are these people always wanting to know if I’m married?’ they said, ‘Well you’re a male music teacher applying for an elementary school job, you must be gay’. I said, ‘Well I’m not, I’m married with two children’. Like several of the women teachers interviewed for this study, Brian situated discrimination in the past, noting that times have changed. I don’t know that we fight [that stigma] as much as we used to. But I think that now mainly because of that lifestyle has become more accepted ...it is not as big a stigmatism in the hiring process. While Brian repeatedly using the term ‘stigma’ within the interview, rather than ‘homophobia’, Brian surmised that homophobic responses to the presence of males in elementary teaching positions have lessened in recent years. But at first, that was the number one concern of principals is ‘Why am I hiring a male elementary teacher?’ I remember a parent who got upset with me, at one of my schools, who called the superintendent to complain about the way I treated their [child]. When the superintendent called my principal, he had no problem with what I did, but his number one comment was ‘Why in the hell did you hire a male music teacher?’ And I was very offended, I mean he said this in front of me. And I was very offended at this
Downloaded by [ ] at 06:52 16 November 2011 16 K. Roulston and M. Misawa statement. I feel like I do a great job, and I did a great job in elementary music. And I eventually moved away to middle school to get away from that to some extent. Because colleagues even treated me differently being a male elementary teacher. I don’t think it was so much being a music teacher, it was being a male elementary teacher. There are many male choral directors who teach middle school and high school and that stigmatism doesn’t exist. But being an elementary male I did get some, I think I was put into a deviant category. In the world of music teaching described by Brian, to be a male elementary teacher is a problem irrespective of the subject being taught. In middle school and high school settings, however, Brian commented that the stigma associated with the male elementary teacher no longer exists. When asked if he knew other male elementary music teachers, Brian noted that they are very rare. Amy also mentioned the lack of male music teachers in elementary teaching. She expressed the view that ‘to be a male doing elementary is ...is like an extra special person’. Speculating about the reasons that there are so few male teachers in elementary school, Amy commented: But I think they see it as too much of ...too motherly, too matronly to be doing kindergarten or first grade, wiping noses and scraped knees and stuff like that, ‘cause I mean it is. You have to be more motherly with ...the little ones. ...It could definitely be an ego or a masculinity issue maybe. You know I am just speculating. Ellen also reflected on the lack of males in elementary music teaching. Ellen spoke highly of the male elementary music teachers with whom she had come in contact over her lengthy career as a music teacher, although she admitted that she was unclear as to why these men had entered a feminised profession. Ellen speculated that the lack of male elementary teachers could possibly be an outcome of societal roles in which elementary teaching is not seen to be a desired role for men. In teachers’ accounts, the male elementary teacher was portrayed as a minority among many females, which is reflective of national statistics in the USA and elsewhere. Brian’s narratives revealed that he had been repeatedly subjected to others’ inferences that to be a male teacher in an elementary school meant that he must be gay, and he vigorously asserted his heterosexual identity as a married man with children. While none of the women interviewed for this study mentioned sexual orientation in relation to male elementary teachers, five of the six teachers mentioned the stigma involved in boys singing, and how boys who sing risk being labelled as ‘sissies’, or in Brian’s words, a ‘girly-man’. In the next section, teachers’ descriptions of their teaching strategies as related to gender will be provided. Reference to the use of strategies that reinforce gender stereotypes Several teachers (Brian, Carole, and Fiona) indicated that parents sometimes encourage their sons to engage in activities that demonstrate a particular kind of (hegemonic) masculinity, and discourage their participation in (feminised) musical activities. An interesting example of this phenomenon is recorded in Lareau’s (2003) in-depth study of family life in which one concerned father encouraged his son to drop out of one of two choirs in which he participated in order to take up football
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Music teachers' constructions of gender in elementary education

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