This spring I have a class with a significant imbalance between men and women – 9 women and 26 men have enrolled. Any thoughts on whether to spread the women out, bunch them together, or it doesn’t matter?

In Computer Science, this type of imbalance (10-20% women) is typical. In fields (like CS) where women tend to be underrepresented, best practices generally say that you should never leave a woman in a group by herself. Isolating a female student can unnecessarily aggravate variety of contextual factors (stereotype threat, impostor syndrome, defensive classroom climates, etc.). I can't say if similar effects happen in other fields, but this seems to be the consensus in CS.

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Michael Kirkpatrick
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
James Madison University

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