Exploring Gender Typicality and Sense of Belonging among University Students in Gender-imbalanced Disciplines

Abstract

This study examines gender typicality and sense of belonging in undergraduate students enrolled in colleges with significant gender imbalances in enrollment in a public university in the Southwestern United States. Students were classified as either a match or non-match for gender-college congruence, meaning that they identified themselves either with a gender congruous with the dominant gender of their college (match), or with a different gender (non-match). Participants (N = 88) completed a revised version of the gender typicality subscale of the Multidimensional Gender Identity Scale (Egan & Perry, 2001; Tate et al., 2015), as well as a revised version of the Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale (Pittman & Richmond, 2007) to measure their sense of belonging within their college. Multiple regression modeling showed that gender-college congruence does not predict sense of belonging, though it does positively predict gender typicality, adjusting for gender and class standing. Gender typicality positively predicts sense of belonging, although this relationship is not moderated by gender-college congruence. Results demonstrated that more gender typical students may gravitate towards enrollment within a college in which the gender imbalance skews toward their own gender. This match of a student’s own gender with the dominant gender of their college does not seem to be an important factor in students’ sense of belonging. However, more gender typical students tended to feel a greater sense of belonging in their college in general. The study points to a further need to examine gender disparity among academic disciplines that go beyond binary categories of gender identity, and that more may need to be done to support sense of belonging in gender nonconforming students.