Reply to Would you send DD to male majority middle school?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Depends on the class size.  Its no big deal if there's 100 kids in the grade but is a problem if its only 25.  My DD goes to a small private and her grade in middle school is very gender imbalanced (more boys than girls, although its more 75/25).  It is a problem socially as well as academically.  If we would have known going in that it would be the case, we would have chosen another school.  [/quote]

OP here- Could you tell me more about the academic issues that arise from the gender imbalance at your DD's school? I'm considering sending my DD to a school known for the academics, and I hadn't considered that a different gender imbalance might affect her academically.

Socially, I'm not sure it could be any worse than her current school, which has a lot more girls than boys, and all the drama that arises from that. Academically, she runs circles around the other kids and says everything is too easy and boring (which is probably a major source of her social troubles.)[/quote]

In our experience, the impact on academics come from a rowdy class dynamic.  A room full of middle school boys with a few tokens girls thrown is had a very different dynamic than a more balanced class.  The boys are loud and rowdy and sports dominates everything.  They seem to flip between from ignoring all the girls to outward hostility to their participation in the class.  When we have raised some of these issues with teachers at our conferences they have made comments that this class is just so different and they can tell that the class is missing the more mature balance that more girls would bring.  This is a private school so there's no kids who are multiple grade levels behind of throwing chairs or anything; its more subtle.  The girls just find the dynamics exhausting.  It is also very frustrating for the girl to always be the only girl in group break outs or group assignments.  The boys also heavily dominate the honors track so its especially hard to be a girl in honors math or science.  Some teachers do better than others but its not a single-sex school so they don't have the experience.  Like some of the PPs, I and a female in a male dominated field but that doesn't mean I think my 12 YO DD should be the only girl in the room in middle school.  Who knows if 60/40 is really enough to create this type of culture or it may be that my DD's experience is made worse by the personalities of the boys in her class who really push more of a bro culture.  There are lots of variables that will come into play.  [/quote]

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