Understanding the experiences of women in jazz: A suggested model

Abstract

Jazz has long been recognized as a male-dominated field, with females traditionally having only limited acceptance, often in the roles of singer and pianist. Researchers have explored sources of the gender imbalance in the field of jazz and jazz education, but there is no theory or framework to organize such findings. This directed content analysis of the journal Jazz Changes, the official magazine of the International Association of Schools of Jazz published from 1994 to 2000, analyzed published answers to the following question posited by the journal editors, “Women in Jazz: Why aren’t there more women in jazz education?” Analysis suggests a model including three social-psychological theories to describe the female experience in jazz. The theories include Rosabeth Kanter’s theory of tokenism, which describes a learning environment that females might perceive or experience in jazz; Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson’s theory of stereotype threat, which offers insight into why female musicians might make a choice to not participate, or discontinue participation, in the jazz idiom; and Albert Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy, which is offered as a possible guide to providing instruction in jazz that fosters female participation. These theories are offered together as a model framework for future study of both historical and present experiences in gender and jazz.

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