Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer

Sing Us a Song; You’re the Piano Man: The Patriarchal Discourse of Music Education

  • Aubrey Young Ohlone College

Abstract

This article examines the discourse of music education within the paradigm of the social structure of patriarchy. It argues that this system, which, in sociologist Allan G. Johnson’s words, “promotes male privilege by being male dominated, male identified, and male centered,” is so pervasive in music education that even a music lesson in which both participants are female does not escape the effects. Through analysis of a transcript of an all-female music lesson, with particular focus on pedagogy, physical indoctrination, and metaphor, the experience will be revealed for what it truly is: a subconscious indoctrination into a patriarchal system.

Author Biography

Aubrey Young, Ohlone College

Aubrey Young currently is a freshman majoring in English at Ohlone College in Fremont, California. Her piece was originally developed for her English 101A class, where the skills accumulated during the semester (rhetoric, academic research, transcript analysis, etc.) were all put to the test.

Published
2015-09-15
How to Cite
YoungA. (2015). Sing Us a Song; You’re the Piano Man: The Patriarchal Discourse of Music Education. Young Scholars in Writing, 11, 86-90. Retrieved from https://youngscholarsinwriting.org/index.php/ysiw/article/view/174
Section
Spotlight on First-Year Writing