Abstract
Linda Sax shares her research findings on the differences between how men and women respond to college.
BECAUSE WOMEN constitute an increasing majority of college students nationwide, the gender gap in higher education has garnered renewed public interest. Since the advent of the women's movement in the mid-1960s, the representation of women among college students in the United States has grown from 38 to 57 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Such trends have led popular news media to produce alarmist headlines such as “At Colleges, Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust” in The New York Times and “Disappearing Act: Where Have All the Men Gone? No Place Good” in The Washington Post.
We who work in higher education know that there is more to the story than that. We know that enrollments are on the rise for both genders, but that the increase in enrollment has been far greater for women. We also know that this growing gender gap in enrollment is due mainly to increases in college attendance among women from groups that are historically underrepresented in higher education, including African Americans, Latinas, older students, and those of lower socioeconomic status. This fact alone is a sign of great progress for underrepresented students, even if enrollment gains among men from those groups have come at a much slower pace.
Rather than viewing the gender gap in college solely in terms of a zero-sum admissions game, we ought to consider the role that gender plays once students are enrolled. Does gender influence the way that students experience college? Do women and men benefit equally from their engagement with the campus environment? Do interactions with peers and faculty have the same consequences for both genders? Are women and men affected in the same ways by their membership in student clubs, participation in sports, or exposure to racial, ethnic, or cultural diversity? Unfortunately, despite decades of research on how students are affected by their college experiences—research that has been influential in shaping educational planning and programming—we actually know quite little about the answers to these questions. For the most part, our understanding of how college affects students has been derived from studies of students in the aggregate, a point emphasized in Ernest Pascarella and Patrick Terenzini's 2005 review of the college impact literature. What we do know from the ever-expanding scholarship on the impact of college is that students stand to benefit from forging meaningful connections on campus, whether with people, places, or programs. This sense of connection is characterized in a number of ways, such as Alexander Astin's “involvement,” George Kuh's “engagement,” and Vincent Tinto's “integration,” yet little is known about the extent to which such important forces in college might operate differently for women and men. As a result, today's campus practitioners have little information to guide them in developing programs and services that are designed to maximize the benefits of college for students of both sexes.
Enrollments are on the rise for both genders, but the increase in enrollment has been far greater for women.
Theoretical perspectives certainly support the notion that college women's development ought to be considered as potentially distinct from men's. Traditional theories of cognitive, moral, and identity development contributed by William Perry, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Erik Erikson have long been criticized for their lack of attention to differences based on gender. Critiques of traditional male-based theories have given rise to feminist theoretical approaches—such as those proposed by Nancy Chodorow, Carol Gilligan, and Ruthellen Josselson—that view women's development as uniquely dependent on their relations with individuals and on fostering a “care orientation.” Based on these perspectives, one might expect women's development in college to be more strongly tied to their interactions with others—such as peers, faculty, family, and community—than is the case for men.
Conversely, it may be that relationships and connectedness are important for both genders, but that their influence depends on the developmental outcome in question. For example, when it comes to college students' intellectual development, Marcia Baxter Magolda found interpersonal interactions to be relevant to students of both genders, just more salient for women than for men. However, such potential gender differences are scarcely addressed in the vast body of college impact research.
To contribute in this area of inquiry, I have spent the last several years engaged in a nationwide study of the differential effects of college on women and men, published in 2008 as a book entitled The Gender Gap in College: Maximizing the Developmental Potential of Women and Men. The book explores the following central questions: Do the experiences in college that influence student development differ between the sexes? Are some college environments and experiences important for both genders, but more salient for women or men? If so, is there a discernible pattern across the results that can inform longstanding theories of college student development?
This research benefited from national longitudinal survey data collected by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program at the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, and specifically centered on the responses of approximately 10,000 women and 7,000 men who attended 204 four-year coeducational colleges and universities nationwide. The study focused on the extent to which several dozen college environments and student experiences contributed differently to college outcomes for women and men. A total of twenty-six college outcomes were examined across three major domains: personality and identity, political and social values, and measures of academic achievement. (Complete methodological detail is provided in my 2008 book.)
The Prevalence of Gender-Based College Effects
PERHAPS the most important finding to emerge from the study is the extent to which gender shapes the impact of college. Indeed, among the 584 instances when an aspect of college was deemed influential for at least one gender, nearly three-quarters (73 percent) reflected effects of college that were not similar in direction or magnitude (or both) for the two genders. Usually this meant that a college environment or experience was significantly related to an aspect of development for one gender and not the other. Sometimes, effects of college were simply stronger or weaker for men or women. Occasionally, aspects of college yielded effects that were opposite for women and men.
The growing gender gap in enrollment is due mainly to increases in college attendance among women from groups that are historically underrepresented in higher education, including African Americans, Latinas, older students, and those of lower socioeconomic status.
This article highlights some of the major findings and implications emanating from the study. Here I explore some of the cornerstones of the undergraduate experience—living away from home, interacting with faculty, being academically engaged, and learning about diversity—and how they contribute in unique ways to women's and men's development in college. Though these emergent themes probably do not reflect the experiences of all women or all men—variation within gender is usually greater than differences between the genders—they do reflect tendencies that are observed across the population of college students at four-year colleges and universities.
Educators are encouraged to review these findings with an eye toward their relevance for practice. Do these gender differences reflect what we see on our own campus? Do they suggest the need for us to make changes to our programs and services? Do they point the way toward strategies for raising consciousness about these and other gender issues among faculty, administrators, staff, and students?
In my own experience in sharing the findings from the study with campus practitioners around the country, I have learned that the results resonate deeply with what is being observed on college campuses, but that conversations about what to do rarely occur. Part of the problem is that the responsibility for addressing gender differences does not reside with one campus department or unit, such as a gender studies department or a women's resource center. Rather, gender gaps and gender-based college influences have implications across a range of programs, services, and units, including residential life, classroom teaching, academic advising, counseling, recreation, and the provost's office, to name a few. The ability to improve the college experience for both sexes starts with achieving greater communication about gender both within and between these various campus units and is realized through a coordinated effort to implement reform.
Theme 1: The Importance of Leaving Home for Female Students
AS STUDENTS decide which college to attend, location is most certainly a factor. Some choose to travel a great distance from home and immerse themselves in a completely new environment. Others remain closer to home or even live at home and thereby stay connected with family and friends, possibly save some money, and perhaps even shoulder a range of family and household responsibilities. I have learned from the research that during the process of choosing a college, women feel more pressure than men to satisfy their parents' wishes and to select a college because it is close to home. Yet the research also suggests that attending college closer to home may not be in the best interests of female students.
For example, the farther a woman travels to attend college, the more likely she is to gain confidence in her academic, intellectual, and writing skills, as well as improve her belief in her effectiveness as a leader and public speaker. We also find that women's sense of emotional health is strengthened by attending college farther from home. Other research has documented the importance of leaving home because it encourages a strong sense of independence among women and provides them with an opportunity to establish their academic and social identities in a new environment. Women who stay close to home may lose out on such opportunities, especially if they are expected to maintain their child-care or other family responsibilities while they are in school.
For men, on the other hand, whether they attend college close to home or 3,000 miles away seems to make no practical difference in their sense of emotional well-being or their confidence in their academic and leadership abilities, perhaps because men have achieved greater emotional separation from their family by the time they go to college, according to Maureen Kenny and Gail Donaldson. In this case, gaining distance from family can be viewed as simply less critical for the men. They can stay close to home with relatively fewer expectations that they will assume ongoing family responsibilities.
Implications for Practice
Campuses have long been challenged to help students and their parents maintain a healthy balance between separation and connection, and it appears that this balance may be even more critical for women students. As a result, college counselors and admissions officers ought to educate women students (and their parents) about the developmental importance of establishing independence. Parents who think their daughter is not ready to leave home should know that by letting their daughter go, they are enabling her to become more confident academically, socially, and emotionally. In contrast, encouraging their daughter to stay close to home based on the belief that it will ease her adjustment to college may have the unintended consequence of impeding her development.
At the same time, we also need to acknowledge that separation is a rapidly changing concept, for students today stay in frequent contact with their parents via cell phones, text messages, and e-mail, regardless of location. Research that colleagues and I recently conducted on public university students in California suggests that this type of frequent contact may be especially common for female students. The role of family in the lives of students is an area of renewed concern in higher education, given the growing numbers of parents—sometimes referred to as helicopter parents—who are involved in the daily lives and academic affairs of their college-age children. The challenge facing colleges and universities is how to encourage women to develop a healthy sense of independence in light of their ongoing connection to their parents. This does not mean that women ought to sever ties with their families; this is neither realistic nor desirable. In fact, autonomy and connection need not be mutually exclusive. Echoing a conclusion drawn by Ruthellen Jossel-son, college women face the challenge of “becoming different and maintaining connection at the same time” (p. 171).
Though it is clear that women derive unique benefits from going away to college, we must also remember that for many women, moving far away from home is simply not an option. This limitation is especially salient for the growing numbers of low-income women who are attending college, many of whom have ongoing family or work commitments. Campuses need to make special efforts to engage these women as much as possible in campus life—for example, through learning communities, service-learning programs, or student leadership opportunities—so that they can achieve a healthy sense of autonomy and independence despite their proximity to their family.
Theme 2: Gender Differences in Student-Faculty Interactions
ONE of the more surprising findings in the study
Politics and social activism. For both genders, interacting with faculty tends to promote political liberalism, political engagement, and a commitment to social activism. However, relationships of this sort are more common and more pronounced among men. For example, men who spend more time talking with faculty outside of class tend to become more liberal in their political ideologies, more committed to promoting racial understanding, and more knowledgeable about political and social issues. Further, feeling that faculty are supportive of them as individuals relates to increases in political engagement, liberalism, cultural awareness, and commitment to promoting racial understanding that are larger for men than women.
Self-confidence and well-being. Women's sense of self-confidence appears to be more strongly tied to their interactions with faculty than is the case for men. For example, receiving constructive faculty feedback is uniquely beneficial for women in terms of their achievement motivation and sense of physical well-being. Conversely, feeling that faculty did not take their comments seriously in the classroom has negative consequences for women's academic aspirations, self-confidence in math, and sense of physical well-being. Interestingly, challenging a professor's ideas in class relates to gains in stress among women, but declines in stress among men.
Attitude about gender roles. Interactions with faculty also help to shape men's and women's attitudes when it comes to societal gender roles, specifically their support of the traditional notion that “the activities of married women are best confined to the home and family.” Men who interact more frequently with faculty and who feel that faculty are personally and academically supportive of them tend to become less supportive of traditional gender roles; in other words, they tend to espouse more egalitarian beliefs about gender. For women, the opposite is true; those who spend greater amounts of time with faculty, especially in the context of research, begin to advocate more traditional views about gender roles.
The farther a woman travels to attend college, the more likely she is to gain confidence in her academic, intellectual, and writing skills, as well as improve her belief in her effectiveness as a leader and public speaker.
Autonomy and connection need not be mutually exclusive.
These examples illustrate ways in which men's and women's academic identity, gender-role expectations, self-esteem, and community orientation all are sensitive—though in somewhat different ways—to their encounters with faculty. They reveal unanticipated changes in students that stem from the quantity and quality of their interactions with professors. However, because survey data alone cannot adequately explain the dynamics behind these influences, a number of new questions come to mind: Are there gender differences in the nature of faculty-student interactions across a range of disciplines? To what extent are political and social issues the centerpiece of student-faculty discussions? To what degree do faculty divulge their own personal viewpoints? What sorts of messages do faculty send—intentionally or not—in regard to women's social roles? And how do all of these dynamics depend on the gender of the faculty member? Unfortunately, we currently know very little about the answers to these questions because most research on the impact of student-faculty interactions focuses on the quantity rather than the quality of those interactions. This area is clearly ripe for further research.
Implications for Practice
Members of the campus community ought to be aware that when women and men interact with their professors— whether in the classroom, during office hours, or in the context of research—the outcome is not always the same. Faculty members would benefit from a better understanding of the implications of their actions, both overt and subtle, on male and female students. Instructors need to understand that even when they believe that they are treating women and men the same—and in fact, they might actually be doing so—women and men tend to react differently to these encounters. Particular attention should be paid to the fact that dismissive faculty comments can have a negative effect on female students' academic confidence and even physical well-being.
Faculty might also consider strategies for encouraging women to feel safe while speaking up in the classroom. Faculty should be encouraged to reflect on the following questions: Do their teaching practices allow for an open exchange of ideas? How do they respond when students challenge them in the classroom? Do they provide a forum for differing perspectives? Do they encourage students to respect the opinions of their peers? Are they aware that women and men may respond differently to classroom dynamics?
Gender differences in the outcomes of student-faculty interaction also have implications for counseling and advising. Knowing that women and men respond differently to their interactions with professors may enable academic advisors and psychological counselors to more effectively respond to students who are having difficulty in college, whether personally or academically. For example, if a female student describes feelings of stress or self-doubt, counselors and advisors ought to probe into her experiences with faculty. They might ask the student to describe how she feels during class, whether she is comfortable asking questions, and whether she feels dismissed or supported by her instructors. Such information may provide insight into the dynamics underlying the student's feelings or behaviors and may prove especially critical if the student is making an important decision such as whether to change her major or career plans.
Also, campuses should use orientation and first-year seminars as an opportunity to better educate students about what to expect from faculty, so that students know that if they receive critical feedback or tough questions from professors, it does not necessarily indicate that the faculty are second-guessing them; instead, faculty may be pushing them for all the right reasons.
Theme 3: The Salience of Academic Engagement for Men
COMING INTO COLLEGE, women have an established record of academic engagement. In their senior year in high school, they spend more time than men studying, doing homework, and getting involved in a range of academic and cocurricular activities. Women also tend to place greater value than men on the intellectual benefits of going to college, such as the opportunity to learn more about what interests them and to become well prepared for graduate school. Men, on the other hand, are slightly more likely than women to feel bored in class or to come late to class— patterns of behavior that persist from high school to college. Thus, women arrive at college with a superior record of academic achievement and intellectual engagement, a gender gap that holds steady over the course of college.
Despite evidence of lower academic engagement among male students, we find that the influence of academic engagement is stronger for men. For example, when it comes to grades, men reap greater benefits than do women from the amount of time they spend studying, doing assignments, and preparing for class. Study time also makes more of a difference for men when it comes to boosting academic confidence, critical thinking skills, and achievement motivation. Further, the more time that men devote to their studies, the more interested they become in the larger political and cultural contexts that surround them; the same is not true for women.
Thus, men might view studying not just as a means to improve their grades but also as an investment in their broader intellectual and cultural engagement. Certainly, studying matters for women as well, but it seems to make more of a difference for men. Other aspects of academic engagement also appear to be more salient for men than women—for example, attending faculty office hours or tutoring other students, which yield stronger positive effects on men's grades than women's. In addition, certain experiences that typically remove men from the formal academic environment— such part-time jobs, sports, and exercise—bring about lower grades for men but not for women.
Implications for Practice
Clearly, colleges need to consider strategies for facilitating greater academic engagement among male students. This is challenging work because gender differences in academic engagement exist well before students set foot on campus and generally sustain as students move through their undergraduate years. Jillian Kinzie and her colleagues suggest that colleges should prioritize men's involvement in “high impact” practices such as “learning communities, first-year seminars, writing-intensive courses, student-faculty research, study abroad, internships, and capstone seminars” (p. 22). These educational contexts facilitate an investment of intellectual energy among both genders, but may be especially pivotal for men.
Campus practitioners also ought to consider the relevance of these findings to students at their particular institution. They should compare the academic performance of male and female students across majors and assess the extent to which men and women are engaged academically, whether through studying for courses, participating in specialized learning opportunities, or connecting with faculty. Are there particularly effective approaches for engaging male students? Are there unique challenges in reaching the male student population? Collective attention to these questions by a variety of campus units can help to jump-start an important institutional dialogue about the experiences of women and men on campus.
Studying matters for women, it seems to make more of a difference for men.
Theme 4: Complex Reactions to Diversity among Male Students
For example, my research shows that attending campus-based diversity workshops contributes more strongly to men's personal commitment to improving race relations than to women's. Further, diversity workshops and ethnic studies courses each give rise to more progressive attitudes about gender roles among male students, but exhibit no such effect for female students. Ethnic studies courses are also related to increased political interest and liberal political and social views for men more than women.
My research also finds that social experiences with diversity, such as dating or dining, studying, or living with someone of a different race or ethnicity, tend to be more influential for men than women, especially when it comes to enhancing their cultural awareness, commitment to social activism, and desire to improve race relations. Diverse social interactions also relate to stronger gains among men when it comes to their critical thinking skills, achievement motivation, and philosophical orientation.
At the same time, the study reveals potential challenges for men who participate in diversity programming in that attitudinal shifts brought about by exposure to diversity are accompanied by heightened feelings of discomfort among male students. Specifically, men who participate in racial or cultural awareness workshops tend to feel more overwhelmed by all they have to do. These findings may be a testament to the fact that change is not always easy, for it can be anxiety-provoking to engage in self-reflection and to question long-standing beliefs. A sense of feeling overwhelmed may also reflect the greater sense of personal and social responsibility that results from expanding one's awareness about people from historically marginalized groups.
Implications for Practice
The benefits of diversity programming in the curriculum and cocur-riculum have been well documented, and there is every reason to encourage more students, especially men, to seek out these opportunities in college. However, educators who are engaged in diversity programming ought to keep in mind that not all students will respond in the same way to these experiences. Campuses should provide appropriate resources for students who experience heightened stress as a result of diversity programming experiences. Appropriate support could involve following up with students weeks or even months after their participation in diversity programming, in order to gauge whether counseling or other support may be needed. As campuses continue to introduce and expand diversity programming, it will be important for them to continually assess the extent to which such programming closes the loop by addressing the developmental repercussions that arise, especially for men who may be experiencing internal struggle as a result of these learning opportunities. Colleges might also view diversity programming as an opportunity to involve men in efforts to promote race relations on campus and to raise awareness of larger social justice issues.
We also ought to consider why women seem to be benefiting less from diversity experiences than men. Perhaps there is less room to grow, given that the attributes that diversity promotes among men—political liberalism, progressive attitudes about gender roles, and commitment to social activism—are generally higher among women at the start of college. Campuses ought to consider whether perhaps women need more advanced diversity programming, given that their sensitivities already appear well developed when they arrive on campus. Colleges also might think about how women can play a greater leadership role in developing and promoting diversity workshops or other related initiatives.
Certain experiences that typically remove men from the formal academic environment—such as part-time jobs, sports, and exercise—bring about lower grades for men but not for women.
Campuses should provide appropriate resources for students who experience heightened stress as a result of diversity programming experiences.
Considering Gender in Research and Practice
THE FINDINGS highlighted earlier illustrate that when we talk about gender and college, we need to think past the popular messages that are currently being conveyed—that gender equity has been achieved, that women are an academic success story, and that men are experiencing an educational crisis. There is some truth to each of these messages, but they tend to convey the status of women and men as a zero-sum game: if one gender is succeeding, the other must be failing. The reality is that both genders face obstacles and challenges in their pursuit of higher education, and it is incumbent on the higher education community to gain a deeper understanding of the nuances and implications of the gender gap in college.
Gender shapes not just the characteristics of women and men entering college but also the way in which women and men experience college. In various ways and to varying extents, gender influences how women's and men's interactions with people, programs, and services on campus ultimately contribute to their academic success, their beliefs about themselves, and their outlook on life. This is not to suggest that college predicts wholly different gender-based patterns of development. To be sure, broad-sweeping notions of how college affects women or how college affects men are not evident here. Further, the evidence does not lend support to the theoretical notion that interpersonal relationships are more salient to women's development. To the contrary, interpersonal interactions influence students of both genders—-just in slightly different ways. In fact, the study reveals literally hundreds of ways in which women and men react differently to their experiences in college. Each of these has the potential to alter campus practice and to suggest important directions for future research.
Our awareness of gender differences in the impact of college represents just the tip of the ice-berg. Each of these findings begs for additional research—both quantitative and qualitative—to gain deeper insights into the dynamics behind it. In looking deeper, we also need to consider the role of gender vis-à-vis other student characteristics such as race, ethnicity, social class, or sexual orientation. In other words, if a college experience relates to a particular outcome for women, we must then ask questions such as these: Does the experience predict this outcome equally for all women or just certain groups of women? Which women are more strongly affected, and why? This sort of questioning ought to become second nature not only to those engaged in research on college impact but also to campus practitioners and decision makers whose everyday efforts should be guided by maximum enlightenment about the ways in which college affects different types of students in different ways.