Same Major, Different Peers - Gender Sorting Across and Within Majors

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Pentious

The study examines persistent gender segregation in higher education by measuring sorting within majors at a student-by-course level. It quantifies how much variation in same-gender peer proportions comes from within-major differences, reporting substantial internal variation for both female and male students. The analysis also identifies that gender-based sorting is more prevalent for particular student groups. The work provides guidance for measuring these patterns across campus contexts and argues that major-level studies can miss key mechanisms driving segregation.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time43 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Gender segregation across and within institutions

Limits of major-level analysis

Course-level tracking and curricular structures

Significance of within-major peer sorting

AERA Open January-December 2025, Vol. 11, No. 1, pp. 1–17 DOI: 10. 1177/23328584251355604 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2025. [https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](https://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) Same Major, Different Peers: Gender Sorting Across and Within Majors XunFei Li University of California, Irvine Rachel B. Baker University of Pennsylvania Richard Arum University of California, Irvine Prior studies have found persistent gender segregation across majors in higher education. We build on this literature by documenting segregation within majors through examining student experiences at a student-by-course level. We measure the variation in the proportion of students’classmates who are their same gender and explore which levels of sorting explain this variation. We observed that considerable variation persists within majors: 61% of the variation in the proportion of samegender peers arises from within-major variation for female students, and 48% for male students. We also find that sorting by gender is more prevalent for certain groups of students. Our study offers a guide for measuring this phenomenon in various campus contexts, examining how curricular choice can affect student sorting within majors. This study suggests that previous work examining sorting only at the major level misses some important opportunities for understanding the mechanisms through which gender segregation occurs in higher education. Keywords: Classmate/peer composition, curriculum, descriptive analysis, diversity, gender segregation, higher education, higher education pathways, horizontal segregation, measurements, research methodology, sorting, tracking Introduction Since the 1980s, female students in the U. S. have earned a proportionally larger share of college degrees when compared to their male counterparts (Kao, 2015), thus narrowing, or even reversing, the gender gap in educational attainment. However, the decrease in vertical stratification has been coupled with a troubling persistence in horizontal sorting. Male and female students are sorted into qualitatively different kinds of education both across and within institutions (Charles & Bradley, 2002; Gerber & Cheung, 2008) . In particular, female students are underrepresented in fields with greater labor market returns, including some STEM and technical fields (Barone, 2011; Bobbitt-Zeher, 2008; Davies & Guppy, 1997; Iannelli et al., 2018) . Gender segregation across fields of study has persisted for the past three decades in many countries and research has identified multiple sociocultural, institutional, and psychological factors that have contributed to gender segregation across fields of study (Barone, 2011; Barone & Assirelli, 2020; Bobbitt-Zeher, 2008; Charles & Bradley, 2002; DiPrete & Buchmann, 2013; Ganley et al., 2018; Gerber & Cheung, 2008; Penner, 2015; Speer, 2017; Wang et al., 2013; Xie et al., 2015) . However, examining segregation only across majors could mask considerable segregation that occurs within majors. Even students within the same fields can find themselves in different courses due to various curricular structures, which encompass factors such as elective courses and general education courses (Chaturapruek et al., 2021; Mann & DiPrete, 2013; McFarland, 2006; Scott-Clayton, 2015) . For example, in the Biological Science department in our focal university, “Biology of Aging” has a relatively low proportion of female students (48%), while “Mood Disorders” has an average high proportion (83%) . In Sociology, “Social Networks and Social Support” has an average of 56% female students, while “Sociology of Education” has an average of 79% female students. Such horizontal sorting is somewhat akin to tracking, a concept that has garnered considerable attention in the K–12 literature for its forms and effects (Domina e

FAQs

What does the study measure about gender sorting in higher education?

It documents gender segregation within majors by examining student experiences at a student-by-course level and measuring how peers’ gender proportions vary across courses.

How much of the variation comes from within-major differences?

The study reports that considerable variation persists within majors, with 61% of within-major variation for female students and 48% for male students driving same-gender peer proportion differences.

Why is studying within-major sorting important?

Because analyzing segregation only across majors can obscure segregation occurring within majors; course-level curricular choices can shape student sorting and reveal mechanisms behind gender segregation.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Pentious