Boys keep swinging? Sex-composition of the school and pressure for gender-conformity

ABSTRACT

This study assesses the effect of secondary schools’ sex-composition on boys’ and girls’ felt pressure for gender-conformity. Whereas gender-conformity pressure affects adolescents’ well-being, little large-scale research examines school features’ influence. Multilevel-analyses are conducted on representative Flemish data of first grade students, 2688 boys and 2430 girls, in 57 secondary schools, gathered at the beginning of school-year 2012/13 and the end of 2013/14. When estimating the effects on gender-conformity pressure at time 2, the gender-conformity pressure at time 1 is accounted for. For girls, no effects of the school’s sex-composition are found. Boys in schools with more girls display lower levels of felt pressure at the start of secondary education. The felt pressure at time 2 increases with the proportion of girls, indicating that boys forming a numerical minority at school, report more growth in gender-conformity pressure. This effect is stronger for boys holding more traditional gender-role attitudes.

KEYWORDS:

• Pressure for gender-conformity
• sex-composition
• gender identity
• multilevel-analysis

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the project ‘Teaching in the bed of Procrustes’, financed by the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (Project Number: SBO 110020), which made this research possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Agentschap voor Innovatie door Wetenschap en Technologie: [Grant Number SBO 110020].

Notes on contributors

Mieke Van Houtte

Mieke Van Houtte is full professor and head of the research team CuDOS (Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Belgium). Her research interests cover diverse topics within the sociology of education, particularly the effects of structural and compositional school features on several diverse outcomes for students and teachers, and sexual minorities. She is a member of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts.