190 Difference
outside observers to study classroom interactions. The results of this more disin-
terested research confirmed the student-run study’s finding that male students
participated more in class: “The overall probability of a woman student speaking
in class was .83 relative to a 1.0 probability of a male student speaking in class.”^85
The participation rates for women in classes taught by women was still lower (.79).
Similarly, women were less likely to volunteer (.74 as opposed to 1.0) and again
had slightly lower rates of volunteering in classes taught by women.
These observational studies documented a pattern in which men speak more
than women in most law school classes. It is possible that on an individual level,
this difference in participation can have multiple meanings. In other settings, si-
lence has been interpreted in a number of ways, including as a form of resistance.
One purpose of this extensive review of relevant literature is to provide a thor-
ough examination of educational settings in the United States so that we can
better understand what is known about the meaning of differential female silence
in these settings. The link between lowered confidence and differential silence
emerges in early education and is found repeatedly in studies ranging from ele-
mentary schools through college and into law school. In law schools in particu-
lar, I argue, there is an institutional level on which silence has meaning even apart
from its interpretation by individual speakers. Law school is, after all, a training
in a kind of language. One of the hallmarks of legal training is the instillation of
new norms of adversarial speech, and one canonical legal context in which many
lawyers will wind up working (the courtroom) requires that attorneys be able to
hold up their end of verbal exchanges. Differential silence on the part of women
and students of color in law school classrooms therefore takes on institutional
meaning along numerous dimensions.^86
Another issue raised by observational studies is the relationship between gen-
der of professor and student participation. Although surveys had indicated a posi-
tive effect of women professors on women students’ classroom experience and
participation, the observational work raises some questions about possible varia-
tions among classes and schools in this regard. Overall, both survey and observa-
tional research suggest that students frequently have different responses to law
school teaching along lines of gender as well as of race and class. We turn now to
the findings from the present study on gender.
Classroom Patterns: Floor Time and the Socratic Dilemma
Our data tend to confirm the findings of previous studies, which focused only on
turns, that male law students generally participate at greater rates than females. In
addition to tracking numbers of turns, we also analyzed overall time. In six of the
eight classrooms we studied, men spoke more frequently than women and for longer
periods of time. These six classrooms included all of the classes taught by men and
one of the classes taught by a woman professor (in an elite law school). In these
classes, men students had between 10% and 54% more turns than did women (pro-
portionate to their numbers in the class; see Table 8.4). Similarly, men took be-
tween 12% and 38% more time in speaking. Notice that the greatest overall gender
disparity in participation from the perspective of turns taken (1.54) occurred in