Education: Chilly Climate in the Classroom

In 1982, the Association of American Colleges studied the status of women in higher education and released the report, The Classroom Climate: A Chilly One for Women? The book defined the chilly environment as one inhospitable to women in higher education classrooms resulting from both deliberate and unconscious discrimination by professors, fellow students, and by past socialization in K-12 education. Instructors' chilling behaviors include ignoring of the contributions of women to the discipline, use of male-specific pronouns and language, sexist humor, and stereotypical examples of women's and men's roles. More subtle forms of chilling behavior include preferential treatment of male students, such as calling on them more often, making eye contact more frequently with them, praising their comments, and elaborating more on their comments than on comments made by female students. The “chilly” environment is linked with unpleasant experiences for women in college and prevents them from fully participating in classes.

The instructor's gender has not been found to influence students' perceptions of learning or willingness to participate in class. Rather, the instructor's verbal and nonverbal indicators of availability for communication solicit participation from students. Instructor gender does influence teaching style and availability for communication. On average, female instructors tend to lecture less and ask more questions than male instructors do, resulting in a more interactive and comfortable environment for students. However, male instructors concerned with gender equity in the classroom were more likely to have classes that are interactive and discussion-based. Discipline also plays a role in class design. Classes in the natural sciences tend to be lecture format, whereas arts and humanities tend toward more interaction, with social sciences incorporating the two styles.

Students perceive male instructors as sexist more often than female instructors. Students slightly prefer same-gendered instructors, and female students generally perceive male instructors as less encouraging and view their classes less positively. However, observations in college classrooms have not evidenced that either male or female instructors call on male students more frequently. Both male and female students evaluated professors similarly, and the specific behaviors of the instructor that may contribute to the chilly climate were not reported.

Structural elements such as class size and proportion of female students strongly influence on students' perceptions of their instructors and of the class environment. More than the instructor's gender, large class size inhibits student participation across genders. The ratio of men to women in a class is the strongest predictor of a negative classroom experience. For both male and female students, a higher proportion of female students in class results in higher comfort levels, greater participation, and a more positive experience. Females tend to participate less, and they report negative experiences in classes with a disproportionate number of male students. Although they participate at equal levels in coeducational classes, in single-gender classrooms, women tend to initiate the participation more often, whereas in coeducational classes, the professor usually must initiate the discussion.

Although female students report having experienced sexist behavior by professors and other students, they rate their overall experiences in college higher than do male students. Women reported more frequent [Page 243]interactions with faculty and higher participation rates in class as well as gaining more personally and intellectually from their overall experience, but they did not report gaining as much as men in the specific fields of science, technology, and quantitative skills.

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