Education Week - August 27, 2014 - 12

CONFIDENCE IN NUMBERS
Study: Parity Does Not Guarantee
Women's Equal Board Participation
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
have been elected to speak."
Mr. Karpowitz and co-author Tali
Mendelberg, a politics professor at
Princeton University, culled through
detailed meeting minutes of 87 school
boards in 20 states, analyzing how
often men and women commented
and made motions or initiated other
actions during meetings. On a board
of two men and two women, for example,
members of each sex would
be expected to contribute about half
the time.
For men, that's close to what
the researchers found. Even when
vastly outnumbered, men spoke and
acted roughly in proportion to their
numbers (or more). For example, on
a board with a ratio of 80 percent
women to 20 percent men, men accounted
for more than 19 percent of
the board's conversations.
Women, by contrast, 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.
Voice of Experience
The findings ring true for Michèle
Foster, the urban education research
chair and executive director of the
Urban Education Research Center
at the University of Missouri-Kansas
City. Ms. Foster was not connected
with the study, but she served as
one of only two women on the county
school board in Contra Costa, Calif.,
between 2009 and 2010. She recalled
feeling pushback to being active on
the board.
"I was the new person, and maybe I
was expected to listen, but I was very
outspoken," Ms. Foster said. "Women
usually defer, they mitigate. ... I was
usually the first woman to ask a
question."
The researchers found the gender
gap in participation held, regardless
of the size or wealth of the district.
If a woman chaired the board, she
made more motions and comments,
but other women on the board did not
make more motions when their chairperson
was a woman.
Mary Dolheimer, the assistant
dean of communications at the York
College of Pennsylvania and a former
member of the Spring Grove Area
school board in that state, said she
and two other women on a nine-member
board "tended to have to fight a
bit more for opportunities to weigh
in on discussions. Our president-a
man-did a good job of trying to balance
the conversation, but there were
a few rather dominant male members
that consistently tried to monopolize
the conversation."
The National School Boards Association
declined to comment on the
study, but Anne L. Bryant, the NSBA's
executive director emerita, said the
findings sounded realistic.
"What we find is, women simply
listen better, we tend to speak when
we think we have something to say
that can add value-and there is the
intimidation factor," Ms. Bryant said.
"Ask any woman if she has ever made
a suggestion in a business meeting
and had it passed over, and a few
hours later, a man makes the same
suggestion, and it gets picked up."
That is in line with a 2012 University
of Arizona study that collected
and analyzed recorded samples
of conversations of female and
male scientists. 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."
Similarly, Mr. Karpowitz and Ms.
Mendelberg suggested that women
may feel less comfortable being assertive
in a political environment, such
as a school board, when surrounded
by men.
The school board study builds on
Ms. Mendelson's and Mr. Karpowitz's
prior lab studies of women and men
in decisionmaking groups. In those
studies, women tended to participate
less when they were in the minority-
at about the same rates and ratios as
women school board members did.
Yet because the researchers could
control each group's procedures and
document all interactions, they also
got hints of why women might have
been more reticent: In groups with
fewer women, and where decisions
were made by majority rule, men
were more likely to rudely interrupt
or talk over women in their group.
Moreover, the overall number of "positive
interruptions"-for example,
"I agree" or an expression of interest-went
down when fewer women
were in the group, and the number of
negative interruptions, like talking
over someone, changing the subject,
or saying "no," increased.
Behind the Scenes?
Ms. Foster, the former board member
in Contra Costa, agreed with that
assessment: "I'm well-read, and I
know education, but I'm not a politician,"
she said. "Speaking up makes
you vulnerable in the next cycle of
elections."
Several board members argued
that women speak in and out of board
meetings, which might not count in
the official meeting record.
The study looked at meeting minutes
but not many transcripts, and
Mr. Karpowitz agreed that future
studies will need to delve deeper into
interactions among board members.
However, he said this study used
highly detailed minutes, including
all comments that the board clerk
considered important, and "it would
12 | EDUCATION WEEK | August 27, 2014 | www.edweek.org
be odd if the comments really were
equal, but the board clerk were more
likely to record important comments
from men and not from women."
"If the board members are saying
that women's influence comes in
conversations that are off the record
or before or after the meeting, then
that's an important-and perhaps
somewhat troubling-pattern, too,"
Mr. Karpowitz said.
Anne W. Foster, the executive director
of the Jackson, Miss.-based advocacy
group Parents for Public Schools,
and a board member on the Richardson,
Texas, school district from 1997 to
2006, said her board operated mostly
by consensus. She "did not run into
women on my school board who were
not willing to speak their minds."
Then again, during Ms. Foster's
tenure, women vastly outnumbered
men, a situation the studies associated
with longer meetings and more
efforts to build consensus. "There
were either one or two men on the
board the whole time we were there,"
she said. "I think those men were
just as comfortable as the women on
there, because we would have never
dreamed of it being any other way."
Setting the Tone
Board members and researchers
agree that board leadership can do a
lot to ensure all members participate
appropriately.
"Although these results are discouraging,
we do control the dynamics of
groups," Mr. Karpowitz said. "The key
here is a conversational expectation
that everyone will participate and
having a norm of group solidarity."
For example, Sally Black, the chairwoman
and one of two women on
the five-person Tiverton, R.I., school
board, said men and women equally
participate. Her board has worked
together for years, under male and
female chairpersons, she said, and
"everybody is equally recognized and
validated."
That can be harder in districts with
a history of contention.
Evangeline "Angel" M. Faxon was
elected president of the Stevens
Point, Wis., school board in April,
during a bitterly contentious period
in which both male and female
members spent hours vocally berating
each other and the former superintendent.
She has put into place
formal rules for setting agenda
items and is trying to cultivate civility
on the board, she said.
"We have to just stop nit-picking
about dumb little things that are irrelevant
to the function of a school
board. If we can get done in three
hours, without anyone calling someone
else something horrible, and having
checked off our items, we'll be getting
somewhere," she said.
The research did show that groups
required to seek consensus rather
than majority-rule became more
egalitarian, but Ms. Bryant, the former
NSBA executive director, said in
the end, it's hard to legislate equitable
treatment. "We don't need more rules
or laws, we need a better understandResearchers
have found that the male-to-female ratio of a
school board has a strong influence on how likely members are
to comment during meetings.
When women make up 20% of the board...
they account
for only
14.7% of the
comments
When men make up 20% of the board...
they account
for about
19% of the
comments
Researchers calculated an "equality ratio," a measure of
whether board members used their fair share of opportunities
to comment or make motions. An equality ratio of 1 on a
five-member board, for example, would have each member
accounting for roughly 20 percent of the participation. Women
only commented in proportion to their numbers when they were
in the overwhelming majority of the board.
1.3
1.2
1.1
1
.9
.8
.7
.6
.5
0
20
40
60
80
Percentage of Board Members Who Are Female
SOURCE: The Silent Sex: Gender, Deliberation, and Institutions (2014)
ONLINE: Explore how the gender ratio affects school board members'
participation, with an interactive chart. www.edweek.org/go/board-chart
100
Motions
Comments
ing that good governance requires
looking at a wide number of views,"
she said.
Mr. Karpowitz agreed. The lab studies
found that the content of group
conversations changed when more
women participated. Women "are
more likely to bring up the needs of
the poor, disadvantaged, and children
and families," he said. "It's not that
when they speak up, they are just
parroting what the men say; they
have contributions that are unique
and add to the conversations."
Coverage of leadership, expanded
learning time, and arts learning is
supported in part by a grant from
The Wallace Foundation, at www.
wallacefoundation.org. Education Week
retains sole editorial control over the
content of this coverage.
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Equality Ratio
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Education Week - August 27, 2014

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