A common conclusion drawn from publicly available Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data releases is that Higher Music Education (HME) courses have a predominantly male population. However, HESA data has key issues when examining HME courses: which courses are reported as ‘music’ courses to HESA; how do universities decide which courses are ‘music’ courses; how many different topics are contained within the umbrella of ‘music’ courses? To address questions of gender representation in HME, universities in the UK were approached with Freedom of Information Act requests for the gender demographics of student populations on “music-related” courses. Information was gained on 3456 courses populations between 2014 and 2020, which was categorised by the subject of study. Six core undergraduate topics were identified: generic music degrees (female bias), degrees combining music and technology (male bias), degrees combining music and business (no gender bias), degrees on popular music (male bias), degrees combining music and theatre (female bias) and major conservatoire courses (no gender bias). No area was accurately represented by HESA data, and gender representation varied significantly between areas. These findings have implications for discussions of gender representation in HME across the UK.

从公开发布的高等教育统计局 (HESA) 数据中得出的一个共同结论是，高等音乐教育 (HME) 课程的以男性为主。然而，HESA 数据在检查 HME 课程时存在关键问题：哪些课程被报告为 HESA 的“音乐”课程；大学如何决定哪些课程是“音乐”课程？“音乐”课程包含多少个不同的主题？为了解决 HME 中的性别代表性问题，英国的大学根据《信息自由法》要求了解“音乐相关”课程学生群体的性别人口统计数据。获得了 2014 年至 2020 年间 3456 个课程群体的信息，这些信息按学习主题分类。确定了六个核心本科主题：普通音乐学位（偏向女性）、音乐与技术相结合的学位（偏向男性）、音乐与商业相结合的学位（无性别偏向）、流行音乐学位（偏向男性）、音乐与戏剧相结合的学位（偏向女性）和主要音乐学院课程（无性别偏见）。HESA 数据没有准确代表任何地区，而且地区之间的性别代表性差异很大。这些发现对英国各地 HME 中性别代表性的讨论具有重要意义。