Girls, Boys and Technology in Music Education

Abstract

Information technology is having a profound impact upon the music curriculum, and there is general agreement that boys and girls should have equal opportunities to benefit from it. Although music has traditionally been a subject in which girls predominate, technology is clearly stereotyped as a male preserve. The present paper reports some findings from the Leverhulme Trust-funded ‘Gender and educational computing in the humanities’ project at the University of Leicester, which is using survey and interview techniques with a large sample of pupils and teachers in the Midlands to investigate these questions. The preliminary results suggest that boys are more confident in their use of music technology; that they are showing an increasing interest in music as a result of it; and that teachers have a crucial role to play in ensuring that girls are not disadvantaged in the use of music technology.