Student Participation and Social Difference 175tion, this is the first observational study of gender in law school classrooms to move
beyond counting turns to examine more subtle aspects of interaction. Finally, it is
also the first research on law school education that combines detailed observational
analysis with a comparison across a diverse range of law schools and professors.
This allows us to shed some light on the contours of inclusion and exclusion in
law school classrooms through an examination of the discursive environment cre-
ated for (and, in part, by) students in classroom talk.^5 Although it is unusual for
observational work of this depth to include as many different classrooms and
schools as we did, it is still important to note that the research is best characterized
as a set of comparative case studies, particularly well-suited to giving in-depth pic-
tures of classroom dynamics and to generating hypotheses for further testing in
larger samples, rather than to proving statistically validated generalizations. None-
theless, comparisons among the classrooms of this study can be combined with
findings from other observational studies to generate a fuller picture, particularly
against the backdrop provided by survey and other quantitative research on law
schools. If interpreted with care and in the context of other research, results from
in-depth case studies such as those performed for this study can advance our level
of understanding and questioning regarding wider patterning, in addition to yield-
ing nuanced qualitative analysis of law school pedagogy. To generate this kind of
accumulative matrix for comparison, the following sections summarize not only
findings from the eight classrooms of this study, but also some of the results of
other relevant studies. Taken together, these combined research findings yield the
best picture we can produce at this point of law school classroom dynamics.
A threshold question is that of the effect or importance of student participa-
tion profiles in terms of students’ overall experience. In other words, what differ-
ence does student participation make? On the one hand, the typical first-year law
school class is graded almost entirely on the basis of written work; it is unusual to
find class participation playing much of a role in professors’ grading schemes.^6 On
the other hand, researchers in other educational settings have found a link between
class participation and students’ sense of self-esteem, their overall performance,
and their sense of inclusion in the wider communities and professions into which
they are supposedly being socialized.^7 One could certainly argue that, apart from
whether students’ grades are affected, there are potential independent offshoots of
low participation rates for certain students: that nonparticipation could nonethe-
less affect students’ morale or their image of which voices are valued in the profes-
sion to which they seek entry. As we will see, these arguments find support in
research from other educational settings. In addition, law school classrooms in
which discourse is largely dominated by white men teach a subtle lesson about the
social dimensions of discourse norms in this new arena, about entitlement and
whose views matter. At a time when an increasing number of reports are docu-
menting differential inclusion of students of color and women at higher levels of
the legal profession, findings on classroom climate may help to elucidate a process
that begins in law school but continues on to the highest levels of the profession.^8
In this chapter, we start with an examination of findings on race, then consider
gender issues, and conclude with a discussion of the complex matrix created by a
study of multiple layers of context, identity, and discourse as they play out in stu-