Instrument Gender Stereotypes in Children: Turning the Problem Into the Solution

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Introduction In this day and age where the mass media is becoming more prevalent in our everyday lives, it is hard to imagine a world where stereotypes do not exist. Therefore, it is not surprising that gender stereotypes occur in musical instruments as well. According to a study done by Abeles and Porter in 1978 (as cited in Abeles, 2009), the flute, violin and clarinet are at the feminine end of the “masculine-feminine continuum” while the drums, trombone and trumpet were placed at the masculine end. This means that the flute, violin and clarinet are stereotyped as female instruments while, the drums, trombone and trumpet are considered by most people to be male instruments. In a recent study, a group of children were asked to rank instruments in order of preference. 77.1% of the girls preferred a female instrument while 72.9% of the boys preferred a male instrument (Harrison and O’Neill, 2003). This clearly shows that such stereotyping extends to children as well. There are many factors which can influence a child’s instrument preference, and these factors can be classified into “nature factors” and nurture factors”. Nature factors refer to forces that naturally alter a child’s disposition toward certain instruments, while nurture factors refer to external influences which induce children to favour certain instruments. Of these factors, we know that it is those of the nurture category that play the biggest role in influencing a child’s choice of instrument. Research has shown that parents, teachers, and the mass media ranked among the top six most influential sources of music knowledge among students (Ho, 2009). However, we have yet to explore how they may play a role in reducing the level of instrument gender associations in children. Hence, this paper seeks to prove that despite educators, parents, and the media being the main perpetrators of instilling
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