This book focuses on the role of education in relation to music and gender. Invoking a concept of musical patriarchy and a theory of the social construction musical meanings, Lucy Green shows how women's musical practices and gendered musical meanings have been reproduced, hand in hand, through history. Covering a wide range of music, including classical, jazz and popular styles, Dr Green uses ethnographic methods to convey the everyday interactions and experiences of girls, boys, and their teachers. She views the contemporary school music classroom as a microcosm of the wider society, and reveals the participation of music education in the continued production and reproduction of gendered musical practices and meanings.

‘… original and informative … persuades us to think hard about the roles that girls and boys are going to fill in music when they become adults.’

Marcia J. Citron Source: Music and Letters

‘… an impression contribution to an important debate … and should be on the shelf of anyone involved in musicology, sociology, gender studies or education.’

Source: Gender and Education

‘I was impressed by this book, it made me work very hard and think about music in a new light.’

Source: British Journal of Music Education

‘Green has produced a study which will not only be an important reference work on gender and music, but will also encourage debate in the wider literature on the gendered meaning of music. In the field of popular music such debate has not been very sustained over the years. This text provides a reshaping and revitalisation of the debate which has been badly needed.’

Source: Popular Music

‘Green’s new book provides the first major marriage between a theoretical approach to gender and an experiential study of secondary education … she persuades us to think hard about the roles that girls and boys are going to fill in music when they become adults.’

Source: Music and Letters