Troubling Gender in Australian Tertiary Jazz Institutions: Narratives of Power and Inequity

Women and gender-diverse people remain marginalised within higher jazz education, disadvantaged by enduring gender norms and institutional power hierarchies. To understand how they navigate this system, this thesis centres the experiences of 20 students and educators across three Australian tertiary jazz programs. Using narrative inquiry and feminist theories of power, this study examines the strategies and labour required to succeed within a patriarchal system, the prevalence of discrimination and gender-based harm, and the unequal burden of equity work shouldered by already marginalised individuals. The findings call for urgent institutional action to develop more inclusive and equitable jazz education in Australia.