Classroom Gender Research Articles

Unlocking the Benefits of Gender Diversity: How an Ecological-Belonging Intervention Enhances Performance in Science Classrooms

Gender diversity signals inclusivity, but meta-analyses suggest that it does not boost individual or group performance. This research examined whether a social-psychological intervention can unlock the benefits of gender diversity on college physics students’ social and academic outcomes. Analyses of 124 introductory physics classrooms at a large research institution in the eastern United States (N = 3,605) indicated that in classrooms doing “business as usual,” cross-gender collaboration was infrequent, there was a substantial gender gap in physics classroom belonging, and classroom gender diversity had no effect on performance. The ecological-belonging intervention aimed to establish classroom norms that adversity in the course is normal and surmountable. In classrooms receiving the intervention, cross-gender interaction increased 51%, the gender gap in belonging was reduced by 47%, and higher classroom diversity was associated with higher course grades and 1-year grade point average for both men and women. Addressing contextual belongingness norms may help to unlock the benefits of diversity.

Perceptions of Gender in Classrooms and Associated Expectations of Belonging

The built environment communicates value and belief structures to users. Research on gendered messaging in designed classroom spaces has shown its impact on students; thus, we sought to determine how classroom designs can have different gendered perceptions between those who use the space and those working in the design industry. In two studies, we collected survey data from undergraduates ( n = 97), and then employees at design firms ( n = 88) reacting to masculine versus feminine design patterns in classroom renders. The two groups exhibited strong, opposite correlations between their perceptions of femininity and sense of belonging, plus differences within the femininity scale itself. These findings show the importance of closer examinations of masculinity and femininity as gender constructs, and the need to further study how perceptions of designers differ from the perceptions of users.

Snapshot of CSE landscape in Eastern European and Central Asian countries and introduction to SERAT tool

Abstract Comprehensive sexuality education when delivered in schools by well-trained teachers consistently over several years following an evidence-based informed curriculum can empower learners to realize their health, well-being and dignity; develop respectful social and sexual relationships; consider how their choices affect their own well-being and that of others; and understand and ensure the protection of their rights throughout their lives. However, too many young people globally including in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are deprived of the right to such education. Some countries like Ukraine, Republic of Moldova, Armenia and Kyrgyzstan have made elements of sexuality education part of the school curriculum. Other countries have integrated into the curriculum topics related to physical, mental and reproductive health but find it challenging to discuss in the classroom gender, sexuality and relationships because of resistance coming from political and religious circles as well as from parents. To support countries to collect data and analyze the strengths and gaps in their health education programmes, UNESCO has devised an excel-based tool called SERAT (Sexuality Education Review and Assessment Tool). Once data is entered into SERAT, results are presented in bar charts, which are automatically created, to enable immediate analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of a programme. The tool also helps to assess the relevance of a sexuality education programme in relation to the national context and SRH priorities. SERAT is based on the International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education (UNESCO, 2018).

Mindset × Context: Schools, Classrooms, and the Unequal Translation of Expectations into Math Achievement.

Mindset × Context: Schools, Classrooms, and the Unequal Translation of Expectations into Math Achievement.

Teachers’ Self-Censorship of Children’s Literature in Texas—What’s Legislation Got to Do With It?

Although children’s literature has been challenged and banned for decades, some U.S. states have recently enacted legislation limiting how teachers can address such topics as race, sex, and gender in classrooms, which may influence teachers’ selection of literature. To understand this phenomenon, this exploratory concurrent mixed-methods study involved a written children’s literature course artifact and survey responses analyzed through critical literacy and self-censorship frameworks. Findings indicate that preservice teachers reported avoiding conversations about gender and gender identity more often than those about sexual orientation or race. Further, despite legislative changes, participants mostly reported self-censoring due to lack of pedagogical knowledge, lack of policy knowledge, and fear of institutional sanctions, which are long-standing reasons for self-censorship rather than new ones. Comparatively, they self-reported little desire to promote the dominant political ideology. This research indicates that topic-restrictive legislation can influence classroom practice even when teachers do not share the ideology behind such legislation.

Gender, teaching style, classroom composition and alienation from learning: an exploratory study

ABSTRACT Background Whilst much interest is focused on gender, and classroom-level influences such as and classroom composition and teaching style on achievement, attitudinal outcomes have not received the same attention. This paper focuses on alienation from learning as one sub-dimension of school alienation. School alienation is a relevant issue for all those engaged in supporting students to thrive and have positive outcomes, as it is related to learning and social behaviour, and eventually achievement. Purpose This explorative study considered how classroom gender composition and perceived teaching style affected the development of alienation from learning in primary and secondary schools. Methods A multi-level analysis, based on quantitative longitudinal data gathered in Luxembourg, was undertaken. The database included information gathered during three consecutive waves (2016–2018) from 338 primary school students and 376 secondary school students. Findings Our results indicate that the gender gap in alienation from learning was more pronounced in primary school. A student-centred supportive teaching style (classroom level) decreased alienation from learning in primary school for boys – closing the gender gap; that is to say, it did change the difference in alienation between girls and boys. In secondary school, only individual-level perceived teaching style was associated with alienation if teaching style was simultaneously considered on both individual and classroom level. A high proportion of male students in the classroom seemed to go along with a higher alienation among all students in secondary school. Conclusion This exploratory study indicates that teaching style may be a crucial factor for the attitudes towards school of all students, suggesting that employing student-centred and supportive styles could help to prevent school alienation.

Health benefits of having more female classmates: Quasi-experimental evidence from China

We investigate the impact of having more female classmates on students’ physical health outcomes. To do so, we draw on panel data from the first two waves of the China Education Panel Survey (CEPS) and take advantage of exogenous variation in classroom gender composition brought by the random assignment of students to classes when they entered junior high school. Results from the value-added model show that having more female classmates helps to improve the physical health outcomes of junior high school students in China. Specifically, a one-percentage-point (pp) increase in the proportion of female classmates in Grade 7 explains a 0.003-0.004 pp increase in one's probability of staying normal BmiAZ or going from abnormal to normal BmiAZ, a 0.029-0.031 increase in the BmiAZ score of those with low starting BmiAZ, a 0.003 increase in one's HAZ score, and a 0.157-0.165% or 0.166-0.177% decrease in the diopter of one's left or right lens of glasses from Grade 7 to Grade 8, respectively. One possible mechanism underlying these relationships is that more female classmates bring healthier behaviors. Heterogeneity analyses indicate that the beneficial effects of having more female classmates on health outcomes are more prominent among boys, students with less-educated parents, and those attending rural schools or schools with bigger class sizes.

Lessons from the Field. Classroom gender composition in the context of youth relationship education

AbstractObjectiveThe main aim of the study was to assess whether and how the gender composition of classrooms affect learning outcomes as reported by youth participants in youth relationship education (YRE) classes.BackgroundAlthough gender has been explored as a moderator of relationship education outcomes, the influences of the gender composition of the YRE setting on outcomes has not been tested. Youth in sex education settings frequently cite embarrassment and anxiety about discussing sensitive topics among other genders. Despite reporting anxiety, youth in several studies report benefits of participating in sex education in mixed‐gender settings. Although sex education differs in purpose from YRE, similar dynamics may influence the learning outcomes of YRE. Thus, it is important for YRE researchers to replicate the study of gender composition that has been carried out in other educational settings.MethodsRepeated‐measure analyses of variance were conducted on data from a community‐based sample of 4,597 YRE participants to test for interaction effects of time by classroom gender balance ratio on each of the outcome variables.ResultsResults suggest that for the majority of learning outcomes, young women benefit from YRE regardless of the gender composition of the classroom. Young men, however, appear to report greater changes in skills at posttest when they are in balanced or predominantly young women (>55% identifying as female) classrooms, with one exception for young men 15 years of age and younger.ImplicationsThese results, taken in concert with results from other studies of gender composition, suggest that young men benefit from the enhanced opportunity for dialogue with young women in the YRE educational setting.

Examining silenc(ing) in literature discussion groups

Though researchers have documented literature discussion groups and the importance of accountable/academic talk, fewer studies have examined how students and ideas have been silenced in small autonomous groups. This case study draws on a sociocultural perspective and dialogic participation in these spaces as sites of knowledge generation. Our study investigated the question, “What factors may contribute to the silencing of students and ideas in autonomous literature groups?” Focusing on a sixth grade class of 21 students (11 boys and 10 girls) in a private school, we gathered a variety of data: formal and informal interviews from Nora (the teacher) and her students; recorded transcripts of discussion groups; field notes from classroom observations; selected student and teacher journal entries; artifacts from Nora's professional presentations and information shared with parents; and, think alouds and member checks from Nora.Findings indicated that there were multiple factors that might contribute to silencing: those related to the teacher's discourse routines and instructional scaffolding decisions and those related to the students’ academic and social histories, including classroom gender norms and social hierarchies. More importantly, these factors were in transaction with one another, which affected the strength of the factors. For example, the turn-taking norm advocated by the teacher, was intended to ensure that all participants had access to the floor. However, this norm also functioned to silence topics or individuals. Students focused on the norm rather than on exploration of ideas, sharing journal entries in a pro forma fashion. Students who moved to follow this norm sometimes interrupted discussion of another student's ideas in order to make time for all to share. Other students cited this norm when attempting to hold the floor or to avoid a complex conversation. Some students seemed to use this norm to privilege certain voices over others. The complexity of the transaction of factors offers a more nuanced understanding of how silencing occurs. Teachers and researchers, leaning into this complexity, may be better equipped to help students recognize and disrupt such silencing.

Girls’ preferences for STEM and the effects of classroom gender composition: New evidence from a natural experiment

We analyze how preferences for STEM fields moderate the effect of classroom gender composition on the math grades of girls in high school. Using data from Switzerland, we compare students who have self-selected into a STEM specialization with students who have self-selected into a language specialization. Our identification exploits the random assignment of students to classrooms after they have chosen their specialization. In contrast to the average effects found in previous studies, we find a negative effect of the proportion of female peers in the classroom on math grades for girls who have self-selected into the STEM specialization and a positive effect for girls who have self-selected into a language specialization. These results are important for policies affecting the gender composition of classrooms.

Classroom Status Hierarchy Moderates the Association between Social Dominance Goals and Bullying Behavior in Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence.

Social dominance goals represent desires to be powerful and prominent among peers. Previous studies have documented that endorsing social dominance goals is positively associated with bullying behavior. However, little is known about how classroom context moderates the social dominance goals-bullying association. The present study examined the role of classroom status hierarchy in the longitudinal association between social dominance goals and bullying in a sample of 1,603 children attending 17 grade 3 classrooms (n = 558, 46.2% girls, Mage = 9.33 years, SD = 0.44), 15 grade 4 classrooms (n = 491, 45.0% girls, Mage = 10.31 years, SD = 0.38) and 16 grade 7 classrooms (n = 554, 49.3% girls, Mage = 13.2 years, SD = 0.46) in China, followed for 1 year. Classroom peer status hierarchy was assessed by the within-classroom standard deviation in perceived popularity. Social dominance goals were obtained through self-reports. Bullying was measured via peer nomination. The multilevel models revealed that social dominance goals at Wave 1 predicted increases in bullying at Wave 2 only in classrooms with higher status hierarchies, after controlling for gender, grade, classroom size, and classroom gender distribution. These findings indicate that children who strive for social dominance goals are more likely to bully others when power is less equally distributed in the classroom.

Introduction: Talking Tough Topics in the Classroom

An introduction to this Occasional Paper, in which four educators describe their approaches to tough topics in the classroom—gender, sexual identity, death, and diversity. Despite differing subject matter, the essays have much in common from which we can learn. An important commonality is the involvement of at least three kinds of learning— cognitive, emotional, and social.

Contextual influences on the relations between physical and relational aggression and peer victimization

Previous studies have demonstrated that several contextual factors influence the relationship between aggression and peer victimization in early adolescence, including gender of the same-sex peer group and gender composition of the school. The current study replicated and expanded on this research by examining the moderating influences of gender of the same-sex peer group, same-sex peer group norms, and classroom gender composition in a sample of early adolescents from Barranquilla, Colombia. Multilevel modeling analyses indicated that both relational and physical aggression were positive predictors of peer victimization. Relationally aggressive girls were at a lower risk for victimization while physically aggressive girls were at a higher risk. Relational aggression was a weaker predictor in classes with a larger proportion of girls. Additionally, relational aggression was a weaker predictor in same-sex peer groups with a greater prevalence of relational aggression. These findings provide further evidence of multiple forms of contextual influence on social behavior. Practical implications for these findings are also provided.

Does Classroom Gender Composition Affect School Dropout?

Does Classroom Gender Composition Affect School Dropout?

‘Man-up, go and get an ice-pack.’ Gendered stereotypes and binaries within the primary classroom: a thing of the past?

Gendered expectations are deeply embedded within the fabric of a society and the classroom is no exception; binaries habitually pervade attitudes, practices and pedagogies. This small-scale qualitative-interpretive study, undertaken in one rural primary school in North Wales, explores how the learning of gender is constructed, enacted and challenged by participants functioning within Key Stage 2 (children aged 8–11 years), issues experienced by, both girls and boys, to cogitate implications for gender equity and for teachers' work. The fieldwork revealed that many school participants continue to draw upon essentialist binary discourse, predominantly based on biological theories, to explain differences between boys and girls relating to classroom behaviour, subject attainment, curricular preferences and career pathways. Constant reference was made to acceptable ways of ‘doing masculinity’ and the ‘high-achieving, conforming school girl culture’. Children recognised gender binaries used by teachers and were aware of societal advances in gender equity. Despite decades of research and policies, we are still some way to ameliorating gender binaries and stereotypes in this phase of schooling. Therefore, there is an urgent need for practitioners to become more reflexively aware about the complex ways in which gendered dualisms and hierarchies perpetuate and dictate relations and pedagogical practices, which constrain experiences and opportunities for girls and boys and, to incorporate multiple ways of thinking and doing gender in classrooms.

The Effect of Having Classmates with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders and the Protective Nature of Peer Gender

ABSTRACTThe authors explored how classroom gender composition moderated the relationship between having classmates with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) and peers’ academic achievement in both kindergarten and Grade 1 classrooms. Given the behavioral and social-cognitive styles of girls, it was hypothesized that classrooms with a higher percentage of girls would moderate (or reduce) the academic consequences associated with exposure to children with EBD. To address this hypothesis, this study relied on applying quasi-experimental methods to a nationally representative data set (i.e., Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Class) of U.S. elementary school students. Consistent with prior research, the findings revealed that exposure to a classmate with EBD resulted in lower reading and mathematics scores for classmates. However, classrooms with a higher percentage of girls were found to protect other students’ academic achievement when in the presence of an EBD classmate. The findings presented in this study can be used to challenge educators and policy makers to develop support classroom environments for all students. Educational implications are discussed.

Cross-ethnic friendships: Are they really rare? Evidence from secondary schools around London

This study examined current cross-ethnic friendship patterns in secondary schools around London, UK, and the effects of ethnic group and ethnic diversity on cross-ethnic friendship selection and quality. Questionnaires including self-report ethnic group definitions and measures of same-/cross-ethnic friendship numbers, along with the quality of 3 best cross-ethnic friends, were distributed to 684 Year 7 (aged 11) British students (256 White European, 63 Middle Easterner, 118 Black, 247 South Asian) recruited from 9 multi-ethnic secondary schools (37 classrooms) in Greater London. In contrast to most previous research which suggested the relative rarity of cross-ethnic friendships, findings showed that cross-ethnic friendships were in fact frequent and of high quality, outnumbering same-ethnic friendships for all ethnic groups. After controlling for gender, classroom gender composition, SES, percentage of available same-ethnic peers, ethnic identity and perceived ethnic discrimination, classroom ethnic diversity still had a marginally positive effect on cross-ethnic friendship selection, but had no effect on cross-ethnic friendship quality. White British children reported higher cross-ethnic friendship selection and lower cross-ethnic friendship quality compared to other ethnic groups, but this depended on classroom ethnic diversity. Implications of the findings are discussed in the light of intergroup contact and friendship formation theories. We conclude that research on cross-ethnic friendships is crucial in providing insights into how intergroup relationships are formed during early adolescence in modern multiethnic settings like London secondary schools.

Peer Effects and Policy: The Relationship between Classroom Gender Composition and Student Achievement in Early Elementary School

Abstract The existence of gender peer effects has been well-documented, yet regarding estimates that are best-suited for policy formation, the literature finds somewhat mixed results. This article builds on the gender peer effects literature in a number of ways. First, we focus on early elementary school students, for which fewer studies exist. We also test whether effects in early elementary grades are subject-specific. Contrary to findings for older grade levels, we find that estimates by gender are subject-specific for the early elementary grades. Second, previous studies using similar estimation have focused on very different geographical areas, while this study makes use of nationally representative elementary school data for the United States. Third, we explore whether effects vary across grades, for which the existing literature finds mixed results. We find that the negative subject-specific effects of having a higher proportion of boys in the classroom increases in magnitude across grades, with insignificant effects in kindergarten, negative and significant by first grade, and larger negative and significant effects by third grade. Our findings suggest that a more balanced gender mix in the classroom is optimal for both reading and math comprehension for both boys and girls. However, regarding math performance, there is also suggestive evidence that a 100% separation of genders could improve girls’ math performance without consequences for boys’ math performance, motivating further research into single-gender subject-specific instruction.

Bodies, identities and performances: reconfiguring the language of gender and schooling

In this paper I seek to address a series of tensions in the ways we think, write and speak about gender in classrooms and playgrounds, and in the language we use to describe children and their behaviour. I shall examine some of the concepts we use for describing gender relations among children and consider the extent to which they are still useful. My main focus is on hegemonic masculinity; the female as Other; and ‘doing’ boy or girl, masculinity or femininity. I conclude that we need to take the language we use extremely seriously, and that in our work we need to primarily be focused on ensuring that all children are able to have ‘livable lives’ in school and elsewhere.

A multilevel examination of the influence of trainee‐trainer gender dissimilarity and trainee‐classroom gender composition dissimilarity on trainee knowledge acquisition

AbstractWe examined the extent to which a trainee's gender interacts with the gender of the trainer, as well as the gender composition of the classroom, to influence the trainee's knowledge acquisition. Hypotheses based on asymmetrical relational demography arguments were tested with a multilevel model on data collected from 1,515 predominantly Hispanic adult trainees in 115 classrooms taught by a total of 22 different trainers. Results supported an asymmetrical relational demography effect for the relationship between trainee‐trainer gender dissimilarity and knowledge acquisition, such that trainer‐trainee dissimilarity was related to knowledge acquisition for female trainees, but not for male trainees. No effects on trainee knowledge acquisition were observed for the trainee gender and classroom gender composition interaction. Exploratory analyses suggested that the racial diversity of the classroom was related to the knowledge acquisition of female trainees, but not male trainees.