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Tuesday, September 02, 2014

Study: Female school-board members less likely to speak in meetings, especially if men in majority

School boards are mostly gender-balanced, with more than 40 percent of school board members nationally being female. But a study cited in the new book The Silent Sex: Gender, Deliberation, and Institutions, found that "Unless they make up a supermajority of a board, women don't comment and endorse motions as often as men do," Sarah Sparks reports for Education Week.

The study, conducted by Brigham Young University and Princeton University, examined the minutes from 87 schools boards in 20 states, "analyzing how often men and women commented and made motions or initiated other actions during meetings," Sparks writes. Researchers looked at the number of men and women on the board, and the number of times each spoke. They found that women spoke disproportionately less than men, especially when they were outnumbered, Sparks writes. Women "only made motions as often as the men on their boards when they made up at least 60 percent of the board, and only commented as often as men when they made up 70 percent or more of the board. When in the minority, women used fewer than three-quarters of their fair share of speaking opportunities. In an 80-20 split, women in the minority contributed less than 15 percent of the conversation."

The study was similar to a 2012 University of Arizona study "that collected and analyzed recorded samples of conversations of female and male scientists," Sparks writes. "It found that when women spoke about science to other female scientists, they sounded and felt competent and engaged; when talking to male scientists about science, they felt and sounded less competent and reported less engagement—a reaction the researchers in that study attributed to women feeling subconsciously threatened by the stereotype of women being 'bad at science.'" (Read more)

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