Lessons from the Field. Classroom gender composition in the context of youth relationship education

Objective The main aim of the study was to assess whether and how the gender composition of classrooms affect learning outcomes as reported by youth participants in youth relationship education (YRE) classes. Background Although gender has been explored as a moderator of relationship education outcomes, the influences of the gender composition of the YRE setting on outcomes has not been tested. Youth in sex education settings frequently cite embarrassment and anxiety about discussing sensitive topics among other genders. Despite reporting anxiety, youth in several studies report benefits of participating in sex education in mixed-gender settings. Although sex education differs in purpose from YRE, similar dynamics may influence the learning outcomes of YRE. Thus, it is important for YRE researchers to replicate the study of gender composition that has been carried out in other educational settings. Methods Repeated-measure analyses of variance were conducted on data from a community-based sample of 4,597 YRE participants to test for interaction effects of time by classroom gender balance ratio on each of the outcome variables. Results Results suggest that for the majority of learning outcomes, young women benefit from YRE regardless of the gender composition of the classroom. Young men, however, appear to report greater changes in skills at posttest when they are in balanced or predominantly young women (>55% identifying as female) classrooms, with one exception for young men 15 years of age and younger. Implications These results, taken in concert with results from other studies of gender composition, suggest that young men benefit from the enhanced opportunity for dialogue with young women in the YRE educational setting.