Music teachers' constructions of gender in elementary education

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Music Education Research 19
programmes. This is not to say that there are biological sex differences in the ways that
males and females learn. To the contrary, Connell (2002, Ch. 3) comments that the
majority of research on sex differences has to date yielded no significant differences
between male and females. What we believe to be important, however, is the ways in
which ‘femininity’ and ‘masculinity’ are constructed in schools in ways that constrain
the kinds of choices that might be made by students and teachers, and the kinds of
identities that students and teachers believe must be demonstrated in school settings.
For example, Brian’s construction of masculinity was central to his descriptions
of experiences that differed markedly from his female colleagues. Research
concerning male teachers’ work has demonstrated that they find themselves in the
position of ‘other’ to women, with pressure to conform to hegemonic ideals of
masculinity. Studies have shown that men who pursue careers in traditionally
feminised work settings, such as early childhood, face numerous challenges such as
isolation, suspicions surrounding their motivations to work with children, anxiety
surrounding child-touch, and pressure to perform in stereotypically masculine roles
(Cooney and Bittner 2001; Cushman 2008; Galley 2000; Montecinos and Nielsen
2004; Nelson 2002; Smedley 2007; Sumsion 2000). Men who teach find themselves
pressured to conform to stereotypical forms of masculinity (Martino and Berrill
2003; Roulston and Mills 2000; Simpson 2004; Skelton 2001). Indeed, Mills asserts
that men ‘who do not adhere to hegemonised forms of masculinities’, or who
perform ‘behaviours deemed to be ‘‘feminine’’, are ...often constructed as ‘‘abnormal’’
or gay and become marginalised within the social organisation of masculinities’
(2004, 31). Such was Brian’s experience as an elementary teacher, and like the male
teacher described in Smedley’s study, he described being forced to assert ‘heterosexual
masculinity to counter assumptions that as a male primary schoolteacher he
may be homosexual or effeminate’ (2007, 379).
Conclusion
Findings from this exploratory pilot study provide preliminary understandings of the
possible ways in which music teaching is a gendered career path and how these six
teachers of music understand and describe gender roles in relation to their classroom
practices. Given the small sample size of the study, findings are not generalisable to
other elementary music teachers. In line with comments by Jorgensen (2008) used to
open this paper, findings presented in this article provide fruitful ground for
questions that might be asked in future research. For example, what are the
implications of teachers’ constructions of gender for (1) their classroom practices, (2)
students’ experiences of school music programmes, and (3) the recruitment and
retention of male teachers to elementary music education? Francis’s ethnographic
study of 51 third-grade classrooms in the UK provides a useful reference point for
how one might go about investigating teachers’ gendered performances of teaching.
Francis (2007, 121) argues that there is considerable ‘fluidity and fragility of gender
constructions’ in the ways that teachers accomplish their work, and further
ethnographic research in music classrooms and in ensemble rehearsals might
explicate these constructions in specific ways.
This study of teachers’ constructions of gender also points to further work to
investigate the ways in which gender might be discussed in pre-service teacher
education programmes in ways that challenge essentialist conceptualisations. As