I will be doing a poster presentation about my research project, “Gender and Jazz: The Experience of Young Women in Jazz Education” at the Jazz Education Network Conference 2022 in Dallas.

The number of young women who participate in instrumental high school jazz education programs peaks in middle school, then drops precipitously throughout the high school years. Most high school jazz bands are populated by only a small percentage of female instrumentalists by the later years of high school. These percentages drop still further when examining female instrumental participation in jazz performance at the college level.

While this disparity is well documented, efforts to understand and address the issue have lacked the perspective of the young women instrumentalists taking part in these programs.

This qualitative research study, based on in-depth interviews with 16 young female instrumentalists, taking part in high school jazz education programs in different regions of the US and Canada, examines ‘band culture’ from the perspective of young women participants.

The result is a portrait of their experience and an analysis of key issues relevant to the challenge of creating jazz education environments that sustain and support everyone.