Girls don't rock and boys don't bop: adolescent musical identity and gender stereotypes in popular music.

Abstract

This study investigated what are considered to be gender appropriate musical behaviours from the perspective of adolescents, with a particular focus on listening behaviours and musical preferences. Gender stereotypes in popularised music and ways in which stereotypes are generated through popular media is also explored. Educational implications of gender delineated musical meaning in popular styles of music are considered in order to contribute to a growing body of research on the use of popular music in the classroom. Data were collected from three focus groups involving adolescents of varied ages from three different schools. Music educators from two of the participating schools also contributed to the study. Grounded theory was developed using open and axial coding of the collected data. Results indicated that gender stereotypes in music listened to by adolescents affect musical identity formation to varying degrees depending on susceptibility to social pressures. Gender delineated musical meaning in the classroom was found to have an impact on musical behaviours of students as a result of teacher attitudes and initiatives towards creating a gender balanced music classroom.