Exploring Gender and the Lived Experiences of Singers in a Treble Choir: An Instrumental Case Study

Abstract

Singing in treble choirs provides many unique benefits to adolescent participants, such as increased musical skill (Barrett & Zhukov, 2022a; Hylton, 1981; Shaw, 2022), the development of social skills (Damsgaard & Brinkman, 2022; Hallam, 2010), and greater self-awareness and identity formation (Damsgaard & Brinkman, 2022; Hylton, 1981; Papageorgi, 2022; Parker, 2014). Despite the many positive benefits, female, trans, and non-binary adolescents might experience gender bias and misogyny as a result of their treble choir membership. Furthermore, scholars have yet to deeply explore the relationship between adolescents’ perceptions of their own gender and their participation in treble choirs. Therefore, the purpose of this instrumental case study was to explore how singers interact with, explore, and understand their gender in one high school treble choir. In this study, I sought (a) to describe how participants viewed their treble choir experience, (b) to describe their values related to the treble choir and, (c) to explore how they interacted with, explored, and understood their gender in treble choir. After selecting one choir–The Girls Choir–to participate, I used criterion-based selection (Patton, 2015) to select four adolescent singers (ages 14-17) to serve as focus participants in the study. Data sources included individual and focus group interviews, observations, a researcher journal, and artifacts. Study results indicated that students perceived many benefits to their membership in The Girls Choir, such as belonging, development of individual skills, pride in musical product, and unique opportunities. Furthermore, participants reported feeling comfortable exploring and experimenting with their gender identities in The Girls Choir. While more work is necessary to maximize inclusivity in treble choirs, this study has important implications gender identity exploration in treble choirs.