“Playing jazz is what she does”: The impact of peer identification and mastery experiences on female jazz pupils’ self-efficacy at Improbasen

Abstract

This article is a conceptual analysis of the concepts of enactive mastery experience and vicarious learning experience from Albert Bandura’s socio-cognitive theory, applied to the empirical case of the Norwegian learning centre Improbasen. I outline some historical and socio-psychological contexts that posits jazz practice as a masculine stereotyped activity, to indicate various mechanisms that may cause a low self-efficacy for playing jazz in girls and non-binary children. When presenting the empirical case, I highlight the learning center’s strategies to promote gender equality. Finally, I discuss theoretically how these strategies may strengthen self-efficacy in children, relating them to experiences of mastery and vicarious learning. In conclusion I suggest that a diverse learning environment that facilitates peer identification works better for all genders than, when iconic male jazz musicians are treated as models for learning.

“Being safe means you can feel uncomfortable”: a case study of female students’ participation in a higher education, online improvisation course

“…Teichman (2018) proposes that two key aspects of jazz improvisation, namely creativity and technical mastery, are commonly coded as masculine (Green, 1997). Therefore the 'features of the music itself ' (Teichman, 2018, p 203) can present an additional challenge for women as they may have been given less opportunity to build positive experiences (Johansen, 2022). Even though free improvisation is mainly carried out in groups (MacDonald and Wilson, 2020), soloing within this has been described as having a 'patriarchal ethos' by an interviewee in a recent study (MacGlone and Johansen, in review).…”