An Examination of a Gender-Separate Advisory Program

Advisory programs have a long history of being connected with schools for young adolescents. According to Galassi, Gulludge, and Cox (1998), advisory programs were conceptually present as far back as the 1890s as “it was noted as a feature of junior high schools” (p. 5). As time passed, advisory programs appeared to be connected to the notion of “guidance,” which was one of the classic functions of the junior high schools in the 1940s (Gruhn & Douglass, 1947; Vars, 1998). Major documents of the middle school movement

have identified advisory programs as one of the distinguishing components of middle school philosophy and practice (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1989; Jackson & Davis, 2000; National Middle School Association, 2003). Advisory programs have been defined as classes or meetings that take place on a regular basis, in which the students are placed in groups that are usually smaller (10-15) than most class rosters and where one adult takes on the role of student advocate (Andrews & Stern, 1992; Anfara, 2006; Dale, 1995). Advisory groups are characterized as being safe, open, and trusting places where adolescents can develop relationships with caring adults while learning about themselves and the impact they have on others (Dale, 1995; MacLaury, 1995; Shulkind & Foote, 2009).

Even though most middle school advocates support the establishment of advisory programs, they have historically been regarded as difficult to implement (Putbrese, 1989). Reasons that make institutionalizing advisory programs a challenge center around issues related to teacher attitudes and preparation, structural difficulties such as scheduling and planning time, a lack of administrative support, the difficulty in solidifying curricula, and parental opposition (Wilson, 1998). While these reasons are significant, schools that have done advisory well have found both affective and academic benefits for their students (George & Oldaker, 1985; Putbrese, 1989).

Advisory programs have many names and can be organized in multiple ways, making them appear quite different from school to school. However, the literature reflects a number of consistent goals for advisory programs and the reality does indeed appear to be that they serve a variety of purposes. Galassi et al. (1998) provide a “typology of advisory emphases” (p. 19) that identifies six different needs that advisory can meet:

• Advocacy—designed to meet affective needs with a goal of establishing adult-student relationships;

• Community—also designed to meet affective needs and aid in developing a group identity;

• Skills—designed to meet both affective and cognitive needs with a goal of providing developmental guidance;

• Invigoration—designed to meet affective needs by providing time for students to relax and recharge;

• Academic—designed to address cognitive needs by addressing issues related to academic performance;

• Administrative—designed to address “house-keeping” aspects of schools (Galassi et al., 1998, adapted from p. 19)

It is important to note that these purposes frequently overlap, making it likely that even though advisory programs are recommended as a middle school staple, they are programs that are not easily categorized and vary significantly in both structure and quality from school to school (Niska & Thompson, 2007).

The theoretical foundation for this study is based on what we envision are the main purposes of advisory programs: to assist in meeting the varied affective needs of young adolescents; creating settings where a caring adult is seen by students to be their advocate; and providing students with opportunities to express their own opinions in relation to personal and social issues and having those opinions openly discussed in a safe environment. Our beliefs about advisory seem closely aligned to the types of advisory described as advocacy, community-oriented, and skills programs (Galassi, Gulledge, & Cox, 1997):

Our codes indicated that student and teacher perceptions of advisory (see Appendix A) extended into the invigoration and academic types of advisory programs, but not the administrative type (Galassi et al., 1997). It was clear that invigoration was part of the advisory curriculum at Tri-Valley and its emphasis on fun was frequently characterized by activities that involved mixed-gendered classrooms. Given that our line of research was related to what took place in separate gender advisories, we paid minimal attention to data related to Invigoration concepts. We had no interest in administration types of data as we did not see a relevant connection to gender separation. Ultimately, we chose to focus on the advocacy, community-oriented, and skills types of advisory because in our own educational practices we tend to place an emphasis on the whole child, and these three types of advisory are characterized as satisfying needs in the personal, social, self-managing, and decision-making domains (Galassi et al. 1997).

Our literature review attempted to find advisory program research that addressed organizational structures that included the separation of girls and boys during their advisory period. We were unable to find any studies that concerned separate advisory classes for girls and boys. However, we did find one study that indicated advisory programs were useful in developing students’ self-confidence in relation to gender (Whitney & Hoffman, 1998). The authors also indicated that gender equity and gender self-confidence were “crucial elements to include in the middle school curriculum” (p. 232).

The authors also found articles related to a variety of organizational structures and discovered that most of the research studies discussed issues related to the effectiveness of advisory programs. While we tend to agree with the premise that “structural differences are not what is truly important” (Anfara, 2006, p. 55) when it comes to creating and evaluating advisory programs, we also take the perspective that advisory programs that separate boys and girls may be a distinct change from the kind of structures described in the literature and thus are worthy of examination.

In looking at the structures of advisory, we found that a study of advisory programs in five middle grades schools indicated that the programs “varied widely in their execution and organization of teacher advisory programs, ranging from daily advisory groups with guidance-based activities lasting 20 minutes or more to a 10-minute traditional homeroom business period” (Espisito & Curcio, 2002, p. 29). In addition, results from this study indicated that four of the five schools had more than 15 students in their advisory classes, which made it difficult for teachers to carry on “guidance-based discussions” (p. 29). Activities in these larger classes frequently involved watching Channel One, engaging in quiet reading, and providing students with study time, recess and homeroom types of activities (Espisito & Curcio, 2002).

In a study of an inner-city Philadelphia middle school that developed an advisory program to address among other concerns, issues related to sexuality, drug and alcohol use, and the need for caring relationships, the advisory sessions convened one day a week, at the beginning of the school day for 50 minutes (Brown, 2001). Arguably, one of the most important findings in this study was the indication that some of the students with serious concerns actively sought out the advice of their advisory teachers, often in one-to-one settings rather than during the whole group advisory meeting time (Brown, 2001). Forming such trusting relationships is certainly one of the major benefits of an advisory program. Organizational variance of advisory programs seemed to be common place. We found one other different kind of advisory structure called “extended advisory periods” (Andrews & Stern, 1992, p. 40). This extended advisory lasted for only 20 minutes, which we found confusing, as the indication would be that normal advisory classes met for less than 20 minutes, which seems to be a rather short time period in which to do anything of substance (Knowles & Brown, 2000).

As we continued to search for studies that were more closely related to the gender issues raised in our work, survey research by Putbrese (1989) indicated that while both genders benefited from advisory, girls were found to benefit more. Work by Anfara and Brown (2001) was somewhat related as it involved the connection between advisory programs and the feminization of teaching. While the authors indicated that feminization is one of the reasons why advisories fail, our study found that advisory itself did not fail, but rather separating boys and girls was not as successful when female teachers ran boy advisories. We revisit the issue of feminization in later sections of our paper.

One additional study had a connection to components of our research as it involved the infusion of health-related issues into an advisory program. This study, also conducted by MacLaury (2000), was relevant as adolescent health concerns were one of the major reasons that the school in which we did our research decided to move to separate-gender advisories. Our research supported the premise proposed by MacLaury (2000), that the “affective nature of these topics [health issues] suggests that students need to feel particularly comfortable with their teacher and class before they can discuss them or begin to make personal decisions about them” (p. 52). As we discuss in more depth within this article, one of the major factors in students feeling comfortable with their advisors and their peers involved the closeness that developed by meeting in samegender groups led by same-gender teachers. What we did not find in any of the examined students were advisory groups that separated boys and girls, which is the topic of our research.

The Tri-Valley School District is an early childhood education through Grade 12 district located in Downs, Illinois, approximately 8 miles southeast of Bloomington-Normal. The district is the product of the 1962 consolidation of the Downs and Ellsworth School Districts. It contains a pre-K through third-grade elementary school, a Grade 4-8 middle school, and a Grade 9-12 high school. District student enrollment is 1099, and has been increasing steadily at a rate of approximately 3.5% over the past 10 years. The district’s low income rate is 9.6% with 94.1% of the students being White, 2.3% being Black and 1.4% being Hispanic.

Tri-Valley Middle School (TVMS), also located in Downs, has a shared vision in the learning community that is composed of the TVMS educators, students, parents, and community of providing students with a variety of instructional strategies based on their unique intellectual, physical, social, and emotional needs. TVMS believes that all students can learn and that they learn in different ways. The school team, parents and community must share in the responsibility for providing a supportive and conducive environment for learning. There is one team of teachers at each grade level and each grade operates according to middle level practices. For instance, all teachers work on teams and advisory programs exist at all grade levels. There are 48 adults (39 female, 9 male) working in the fourth-through eighth-grade school that provides a full range of regular and special education programming for 422 students. All of the staff is white and the student body virtually mirrors the demographic makeup of the district, although the school’s mobility rate of 9.6% is higher than the district rate of 6.2%. Scores on the Illinois State Achievement Test (ISAT) are consistently in the 90% range for students who meet or exceed the state learning standards.

In March of 2007, TVMS was named an Illinois Horizon School to Watch. The Illinois Horizon Schools to Watch program is affiliated with the National Forum to Accelerate Middle Grades Reform Schools to Watch initiative. STW awards are presented to middle schools that exhibit exemplary middle-level practices in the crucial areas of academic excellence, social equity, organizational structure and process, and developmental responsiveness. The 19 states that participate in the STW program have middle grades organizations that train public school teachers, school administrators, and higher education faculty to use the rubric developed by members of the national forum to conduct evaluations of middle grades schools. Attaining STW status is a two-tiered process—a paper review team that decides if the school warrants a visit, and a site-visit team that makes the final determination that is primarily based on a day-long evaluation process. The Horizon STW team indicated that it was especially impressed with the TVMS advisory program.

Advisory is currently in the fourth year of existence for TVMS. All teams have an advisory time each day of either 20 or 30 minutes. This initiative has been embraced by TVMS staff members and students, as well as parents. What was particularly noteworthy was that the male teachers appeared just as involved in advisory programs as females, running counter to research findings on the feminization of advisory (Anfara & Brown, 2000). While our own experiences in middle schools supports the notion that “there are quite a few men on the faculty who do not want anything to do with this [advisory] program” (p. 30), there was no evidence of that belief within the data gathered for our study.

In an analysis of survey data following the first year of advisory implementation it was found that students were hesitant in sharing thoughts and ideas due to the presence of the opposite sex. Thus began the concept of gender-specific advisories for the sixth-through eighth-grade teams. In an effort to gain more insight and knowledge of whether or not this new configuration was negatively or positively impacting students, an additional study was launched. This article describes some of the important findings of that study.

We used semistructured focus group interviews in order to gather data from both the student groups and teams of teachers. Semistructured or free response interviews allow an

informant to “describe his experiences and feelings in a context that is meaningful to the respondent” (Richardson, Dohrenwend, & Klien, 1965, p. 261). In thinking about the students as participants in the research process, we chose to use focus group interviews as a way to simulate an environment that would be structurally similar to the advisory setting. We wanted the student participants to be placed in settings that were comfortable and nonthreatening. Therefore, the student participants were interviewed with members of their advisory groups because they were used to having both adult-directed and peer-led interactive conversations within the advisory setting.

When considering the choice of focus groups for both adult and student participants, we believed they would provide a dynamic, interactive environment where participants could build sequentially on the responses of others and lead to potential avenues for understanding the advisory process that may not have been originally anticipated in our semiinstructed interviews. Given that the impetus for moving to gender-separate advisory grew out of a survey, we were interested in using focus groups to gain insights (Barbour, 2007) about advisory from a qualitative perspective this time around, rather than quantitatively.

Our final reason for choosing focus group interviews was directly related to seriously considering the student participants. Theoretically, as well as pragmatically, both of us are committed to the student-centered aspects of middle level philosophy (National Middle School Association, 2010). Listening to students is a foundational tenet of middle school philosophy and to put it simply, we wanted to make sure that the voices of Tri-Valley students were the dominant presence in this study. Along these lines, we wanted the students to tell us what was important about gender-separate advisories. We took a grounded theory approach to this study in that we were searching for “insight, enhance[d] understanding, and … a meaningful guide to action” (Strauss & Corbin, 1998, p. 12) when it came to more fully understanding advisory.

Participation in the study was strictly voluntary and only students who returned both signed consent and assent forms were interviewed. Every sixth-, seventh-, and eighthgrade student who attended Tri-Valley had the opportunity to participate in this study. To avoid the perception of potential coercion by having the school principal solicit participants, Gary spoke with each advisory class and explained the goals of the study and made consent/assent forms available. Students had three weeks to return the participation forms.

A total of seven small group interviews were conducted, three groups of seventh-grade students and two each at the sixth- and eighthgrade level with a total of 52 students participating. Each group was involved in one interview and was asked the following questions:

1. What do you like most about the advisory period?

2. What don’t you like about advisory?

3. How does what you learn and do in advisory help you with other classes? In the community?

4. What are the good things about having advisory period with only members of the same sex?

5. Do you believe that you miss out on certain things because you have only boys/ girls in advisory?

6. What do you see as the advantages or disadvantages of having a member of the opposite sex as your advisor?

7. What would you change about the advisory program?

8. Should advisory continue to be part of the day at Tri-Valley? Why or why not?

In addition to these structured questions, whenever necessary, individuals were asked relevant follow-up questions in order to gain clarification of responses.

Student focus groups lasted between 30 and 42 minutes and were conducted during the respective grade-level advisory times in order to allow students from the same advisory classes the opportunity to stay together for the interviews. All interviews were audio-tape recorded and conducted by the researcher. Again, in an effort to avoid the potential of students being coerced by being interviewed by their own principal, Gary conducted the interviews.

In keeping with the theme of avoiding the potential for coercion, Gary interviewed each grade-level team of teachers using a semistructured format (see Appendix A for list of questions). Using a similar format (see Appendix A), he also interviewed the building-level principal, Jill (who is coauthor of this article). Each staff member was responsible for an advisory group of their own except for the principal. Staff interviews were conducted either after school or during the team planning time and lasted between 45 and 90 minutes. All of the staff interviews and the interview with the principal were audiotaped and transcribed by the researcher. Transcriptions of the adult interviews were sent to the participants to check for accuracy and clarity.

Transcripts were initially coded separately by the researchers, resulting in 15 codes (Appendix B). Once the transcripts were coded separately, the researchers came together to compare, collapse, and ultimately identify the codes. During the coding process, we placed an emphasis on looking for concepts related to gender and its connection to components of advisory, although much more information about advisory was revealed during the coding process. Because we were interested in data related to the combination of gender and advisory as a function of advocacy, community orientation, and skills programs, information that related to other forms of advisory and excluded gender was not included in constructing our themes. An example of this situation was the code “student empowerment,” as we found no direct connection with this concept and gender in our data. We settled on our final themes by determining which codes were present in all focus group transcript data. For instance, in the adult transcripts “neediness” was a code, but it never appeared in the student transcripts, so it was not included in our final analysis.

The comments used within this piece are verbatim. At times, the verbatim repetition makes the article choppy and challenging to read (for instance, the frequent use of the word ‘like’ by many of the student respondents), but we believe that the messages come through authentically when the voices of the people at Tri-Valley are presented as precisely as possible. In the following section, we present our findings in two broad categories: organization of the advisory program and trusting in advisory.

At Tri-Valley, the student class lists for advisory groups are created deliberately at the end of each school year. Information regarding the needs of the students is gathered from the previous year’s teachers and is used to place each student with a teacher who is most likely to understand their unique personality and is able to help meet that student’s individual needs. It is also important to note that at the eighthgrade level, advisory class rosters are arranged so that the male teachers have the boys, and the female teachers have the girls.

Placements are also arranged in ways that promote advisory as being a place where all “types” of kids to get to know each other. Middle grades schools are often places where cliques form, isolating groups of students from each other while simultaneously helping adolescents to build their identities (Coleman & Hendry, 1999). While cliques are virtually ubiquitous and probably necessary for adolescents to develop socially and form their identities, making a conscious effort to help students get to know peers with whom they seem to have little in common may help students expand their social networks and alleviate some of the stereotyping that cliques seem to promote. In essence, what the faculty at TVMS has done is to mix up the cliques in an attempt to overcome some of the labeling that takes place as kids begin to establish their identities as unique individuals:

Interestingly, student comments appeared to indicate that at least some of them recognized that this mixing was taking place and that it was helping to make advisory a positive aspect of life at Tri-Valley. An especially blunt example of boys gaining insight into the notion that a student from another group or clique can be a positive influence was demonstrated by the comments in this exchange between three eighth-grade boys:

Another prime example of the realization that social networks were expanding in advisory came from this excerpt from a focus group interview with a group of eighth-grade boys:

J’s reference to last year is probably related to the fact that the seventh-grade advisory classes were not separated by gender as compared to separate gender advisory classes during the year of this study. Two aspects of their conversation seem particularly powerful: the realization that cliques can lead to drama and being comfortable relating with a person who is not a member of a student’s primary social group.

As J indicated, boys and girls meet in separate gender groups at the eighth-grade level. While mixed-gender, grade-level advisory events do occur throughout the year, students spend the majority of their advisory time meeting with peers of the same gender. As Jill explained in her interview, the move to separate gender advisory groups occurred initially about 3 years ago as a result of the eighthgrade teachers listening to their students’ concerns:

Jill’s comments serve to illustrate a democratic characteristic of Tri-Valley—the idea that student voices can impact structure, and that teachers are given administrative support in identifying and attempting to meet the needs of the students as they arise.

The next sections of this article examine themes that the students, teachers, and Jill identified as being linked to gender-separated advisory periods. While it seems reasonable to expect that a number of these themes could be found in gender mixed advisory classes, it is our belief that comments from the participants suggest that separating girls and boys adds another dimension or intensity to the kinds of relationships that can occur in advisory programs.

Our analysis of the transcript data indicated that trust was an important component of advisory as that term appeared in the conversations of almost all of the focus group interviews of both the students and the teachers. The importance of trust between students and teachers in advisory programs goes back at least as far as Gruhn and Douglas (1947) and has been written about by a number of middle level advocates (Shulkind & Foote, 2009; Stevenson, 2002; Van Hoose, Strahan, & L’Esperance, 2001). While analyzing our transcripts, we decided that in the eyes of the students, the theme trust appeared to encompass the connection between two codes—openness and confidentiality. In addition, it seemed as if trust between the students and their peers, as well as between the teachers and students, was frequently connected to gender, although there were notable exceptions.

Openness seemed to be closely linked to gender, as this comment from a seventh-grade girl suggests that having same sex peers in a classroom allows for ease of discussion:

Lying beneath this ease in conversation was the possibility of a reduction of social pressure and the potential of embarrassment that were implied to be more present in mixed gender groups. The comments from two sixth-grade girls are helpful here when responding to the advantages of having separate gender advisory periods:

Embarrassment appeared to be related to the topic under discussion. Three seventh-grade boys talked about how separate advisories allow topics to be discussed in ways that would appeal to both boys and girls and reduce the likelihood of embarrassment:

The improbability of being judged by members of the opposite sex also appeared to be related to the presence of open conversation during advisory time, as evidenced by this excerpt from a group of eighth-grade girls:

A group of eighth-grade boys combined both ease of communication and lack of judgment in their responses:

While J’s line brings in some humor, there is value in adolescents of the same sex being able to talk openly about members of the opposite sex within the presence and under the guidance of same-sex adults. Comments from one of the eighth-grade teachers seemed to almost mirror the comments made by the students:

Gender-specific conversations can also be useful in helping adolescents figure out complex sex roles and intergender interactions. An extended excerpt from the focus group comprised of eighth-grade teachers illuminates the need for open conversations related to sexroles and intergender communication:

By using advisory as a way for discussing, deconstructing, and teaching about socially acceptable forms of gender interaction, adolescents can learn to communicate more openly and effectively, read social cues, and possibly most important, to become empathetic and consider how their words and actions impact others—especially those “others” of the opposite sex. In other words, at Tri-Valley, advisory is being used as a place where gender and communication conflicts can be openly discussed, understood, and resolved.

In continuing to explore the link between trust, openness, and gender, the most common student perspective seemed to be that having easy and open conversations was more likely to happen when the teacher was of the same gender as the students. Given the large number of female teachers at Tri-Valley, and for that matter, the preponderance of females in the teaching profession across the country, finding enough males to run all-boy advisories is certainly a challenge, and it is not always possible to do so. It was clear from the student focus group interviews that, while there were powerfully stated exceptions, the majority of the students preferred having advisors of the same sex:

Comments from the teachers were often similar in nature to the student remarks with regard to matching the teacher’s gender to that of the students. In fact, it seemed as if the teachers felt that matching genders was crucial in fostering successful same-sex advisories:

None of the teachers indicated that having an opposite gender teacher with students of the same sex was beneficial. In fact, some of the comments indicated how difficult it was. In these gender-opposite situations, a seventhgrade, female teacher was leading an all boy advisory due to the lack of male teachers:

One of the sixth-grade teachers said that “it’s kind of unfair to put a female teacher in with an entire class of boys because sometimes it doesn’t work as well. They’re [the boys] not as open … receptive maybe toward a female teacher when they’re all grouped together.” Not all boys were rambunctious as the sixthgrade teachers indicated that some of their boys were capable of doing the kinds of thoughtful activities that their teachers felt were important in advisory. However, these students were in the minority and appeared to be treated as outcasts by most of the boys:

These comments seem to imply that rather than advisory acting as a way to feminize teaching (Anfara & Brown, 2000), some boys in male advisories attempted to “masculinize” advisory periods run by women by being openly resistant to lessons that lacked activity. It seems likely that some boys considered thoughtful activities as feminine, making such activities unappealing to a considerable number of sixth- and seventh-grade boys. It is not out of the realm of possibility to believe that some of these boys would consider that the boys who enjoyed the more thoughtful activities to be feminine as well.

A related and complicating issue seemed to be the perception of the maturity levels of the male students. It seems as if some teachers were comparing grade levels as the eighth grade was seen as having an ideal program, in part, because they had enough male teachers to have a match between advisors and advisees. Another factor, and probably a critical one, was that most of the eighth-grade students had experienced advisory programs for at least three years and their maturity levels were probably different from that of the sixth- and seventh-grade boys. The sixth-grade teachers especially, may have been a bit hard on themselves in trying to do similar types of advisory activities as those that were being done in eighth grade. It’s important to note that partly as a result of dealing with the difficulties presented by the sixth-grade boys, the sixth-grade team moved to mixed-gendered advisories by the end of the first semester.

On the flip side, while most students preferred same sex-advisors, a few offered some rather insightful statements that indicated the gender of the advisor was not all that important to them. Rather, what was important was the bond or trust that had been established, as this excerpt from a group of seventh-grade girls suggests:

A couple of eighth-grade girls shared a similar perspective regarding a male student teacher who was quite a bit younger than the majority of the TVMS faculty. There could be a number of reasons for this connection, including a closeness of age and similar interests in popular culture or potential student “crushes” on this teacher. It was interesting to note that none of the boys made similar comments about female teachers.

In concluding this section on the connection among trust, openness, and gender, it seemed that the majority of the respondents felt that having gender-separate advisory groups created a more open forum for discussion than did having mixed groups. While the preference for matching the gender of the students and teachers was dominant, the reality was that it could not happen due to the lack of male faculty. Teachers seemed to believe the gender match was critical, as did the large majority of students, but clearly a few students were able to articulate that it was the trusting, almost parental relationship that made a teacher an effective advisor, not gender. We now turn to the connection between trust, confidentiality and gender.

Confidentiality as a component of trust was present in many of the student focus group interviews and it appeared in a variety of ways. Whether or not advisory was confidential seemed to be an important issue with the seventh and eighth-grade students, but it was not clearly mentioned by the sixth-grade students. A relatively common sentiment was summed up by an eighth-grade boy who said that “what is said in advisory stays in advisory.” A similar, and rather humorous, supporting statement came from this interaction between two seventh-grade girls:

While it appears that forgetfulness can certainly support confidentiality, confidentiality also seemed to be linked with gender and age. It seems logical that as conversations become more open and honest and most likely mature in nature, the need for confidentiality becomes important as those who converse are likely to reveal more intimate thoughts and take personal risks in doing so.

In exploring the link between gender and confidentiality, some of the girls indicated that they could trust each other more than they could trust boys when it came to keeping things quiet. Comments from an eighth-grade girl exemplified this sentiment by saying of her same-sex advisory classmates: “you can share things with them and they won’t tell. You have like a trust system in your advisory and they won’t like tell everybody, like ‘oh she did this or she did that.’” A similar, yet more complex picture comes out of these comments made by eighth-grade girls:

These remarks appeared to express the concern that a lack of understanding, and quite possibly an absence of trust or commitment between the genders could contribute to a breech in confidence—that both boys and girls were willing to talk about each other when they may not know the whole story, but in single-sex advisories it was less likely for those rumors to begin. Anyone who has spent a few days in a middle grades school, or has a recollection of their own adolescence, probably has a solid understanding of how personally devastating and socially disruptive rumors can be. If gender separate advisories can help to reduce or diffuse rumors, that fact alone would make them worthy of implementation, especially when considering the concerns about various forms of bullying that have received so much attention in the last decade.

In contrast, it is also important to note that the kind of breech of confidentiality mentioned above was apparently not out of the question, as one seventh-grade girl believed that confidentiality could be violated when interpersonal conflict occurred:

What is interesting to note is that this comment was the only student remark that we heard about breaking confidentiality during all of the interviews. This finding would seem to indicate that almost all of the students we interviewed tended to hold advisory discussions in confidence or at least were unwilling to discuss breeches of confidence during the focus groups.

Further evidence of the pervasiveness of confidentiality in same sex advisory was found in the ways that the eighth-grade students interacted with each other when advisory was over. While not a daily occurrence, Jill reported that boys and girls would tease each other in the hallways after advisory was over:

While it certainly seems that this teasing was done good-naturedly, these comments were also a powerful indicator or affirmation that the students placed a high value on the ability of their peers to be confidential.

In addition to students having concerns about opposite genders violating trust or spreading rumors, confidentiality may have been related to the ages of the students, as this excerpt from the focus group with the sixthgrade teachers reveals:

Ms. P The eighth graders also go like, they’ll go to their advisory about an issue with another teacher and then they can talk about it and work it out. For us, like if a kid came to me and said, “Mrs. H is not being nice to me” or something there would be, it would almost be instantly that another kid would go tell Mrs. H. You know, they just aren’t there yet.

While sixth-grade students did not discuss breeches in confidentiality, our coding process also did not identify any excerpts from the sixth-grade focus groups that were related to confidentiality. As researchers, it would be interesting to examine the possibility that confidentiality becomes more important as adolescents age, and especially as the issues that adolescents discuss in advisory begin to resemble more adultlike concerns. The closing comment from Ms P., that sixth-grade students “just aren’t there yet” indicates that maintaining confidentially may be a developmental trait that occurs as adolescents age. There is also the possibility that the longer students experience quality advisory programs, the more ingrained the notion of confidentiality becomes and the more willing and able the older students are to discuss it as a component of advisory.

The teachers indicated that confidentiality was generally upheld, supported and expected within the advisory groups, but that topic did not receive as much attention during the adult interviews as it did in the student focus groups. However, it was clear that Jill wanted advisory classes to be places where kids could discuss issues knowing that confidentiality would likely be upheld:

Jill’s point about conversations being “unsafe” is an important one, as teachers have legal obligations to report dangerous situations involving their students. As important as confidentiality can be in establishing supportive advisory programs, and our findings clearly suggest that older students see confidentiality as a valuable aspect of advisory, teachers have legal obligations and, arguably, the moral obligation of letting their students know which kinds of situations they must report.

The student responses to our specific question of “Do you believe that you miss out on certain things because you have only boys/girls in advisory?” can essentially be summarized as “not really.” Of all the questions we asked, this one received the shortest answer among the student focus groups as most groups did not provide much more commentary than that two word answer. However, a couple of expanded responses were noteworthy as they matched comments made by many of the teachers. The most common explanation for the not really answer was exemplified by a seventh-grade boy and was related to the fact that “if it’s not like gender related [the advisory activity for the day] we usually do the same thing as the girl advisories.” While most of the time the seventh- and eighth-grade advisories met as separate genders, they often did the same activities that were planned by the grade-level team, so the students reported that they do not miss out on activities.

A couple of students indicated that having separate gender advisories prevents them from hearing the views of the opposite sex. This exchange among eighth-grade girls demonstrated that idea, yet this opinion was clearly not unanimous:

A rather funny counterpoint to the eighthgrade girl’s conversation came from an eighthgrade boy who said, “No, especially because like Mr. B has like five daughters, so he knows about a lot.”

A final explanation for why the students felt as if they didn’t miss much involved the idea that since all of the other classes were mixed, they had plenty of opportunities for intergender interaction. This notion received support from the seventh and eighth-grade teachers, as the sixth-grade teachers had moved back to mixed groups, so this issue was not discussed with them. Both the seventh and eighth-grade teams indicated that they had a number of mixed advisory activity days, which provided boys and girls with opportunities to interact through cooperative games, duct tape fashions shows (the Elvis Presley costume was amazing —complete with a TCB [Taking Care of Business] belt buckle), and outdoor events.

Given that the eighth-grade team used separate advisories the longest, this group of teachers had the most to say about what students may be missing. Interestingly, they sort of turned the tables on this question and discussed what students would miss if they did not have gender separate advisories. When asked, “Do you think you personally, or the kids miss out on anything by having sex separated advisories?”, this exchange revealed their opinions:

The bottom line regarding the ‘what may be missing’ question seems to be that nothing of significant importance is being lost in samesex advisories and that the kinds of thoughtful conversations and resulting relationships that are gained from this arrangement are far more significant that what may be lost.

One of the major limitations of the study is related to the lack of any observational data to corroborate what the students, teachers, and Jill report in the interviews is truly taking place in advisory. While each of the three data sources (students, teachers, Jill) contained similar perspectives related to advisory, having supportive, direct observations of these traits would strengthen our findings. That said, the presence of a relative stranger observing advisory periods could have potentially been problematic in the sense of impacting the openness of the participants during advisory, and ultimately defeating the purpose of having an advisory program in the first place. It would seem that teacher action research could be a valuable method to enhance a study like ours.

Through informal conversations for a period of at least three years with the TriValley faculty, it became clear that they believed that their advisory program was the cornerstone for much of what was positive about their school. These feelings may have made it likely that both the teachers and Jill were reluctant to consider negative aspects about the advisory program. While I tend to agree that Tri-Valley conducts an exemplary advisory program, data obtained from the adults quite likely has a strong positive bias in favor of advisory. Along these lines, my own position as a supervisor for Tri-Valley student teachers and an advocate for middle school philosophy placed me in a less than objective stance. That being said, our goal was to put an emphasis on student voices, and we think this study reflects their perspective. Putting students first could be considered a philosophical or theoretical limitation as well, although we would argue that it relates directly to our learner-centered philosophy of education.

An additional, important limitation may be related to the manner in which we considered gender relationships. Our data revealed gendered relationships in a limited, traditional manner and we failed to consider moving beyond boy/girl relationships. Given that young adolescent sexual identity is a complex developmental process, future research could potentially include more varied and inclusive gendered and sexual constructs. “Potentially” is a key word here as we imagine it would be difficult for adult researchers to broach complex gender and sexual subjects with most young adolescents.

Before concluding this article it is important to mention that every student who was interviewed replied “yes” when asked if advisory should continue to be part of the day at TVMS. The teams of teachers were a little surprised, yet thrilled to hear this. While remembering that this study involved only a sample of the Tri-Valley middle schools students, we believe it is quite remarkable that 100% of the student participants saw advisory as a critical component of life at TVMS.

The major results of this study indicated that having an advisory program that was predominantly segregated by gender was well-received by the majority of both faculty and students, but especially by those students and teachers in the eighth grade. Our findings suggest that gender separate advisory:

• created an environment that promoted interpersonal contact, discussion and relationship building among students who may not necessarily travel in the same social circles or cliques;

• allowed students of the same gender opportunities to openly discuss issues in an environment where such inhibitors as embarrassment and judgment were minimal;

• provided a place where gender-specific conversations could help young adolescents explore complex issues related to sex role development and boy/girl relationships;

• reduced gender-based stereotypes; and

• supported confidentiality as what is said in advisory tended very strongly to stay in advisory.

While it is certainly possible that any advisory program can foster such outcomes, the fact is that these outcomes were clearly evident in studying advisory at Tri-Valley.

Admittedly, one of the biggest problems of implementation involved the lack of male teachers to work with all-boy advisories. Such a situation exists nationally, as teaching continues to be predominantly a profession of women. As strongly as we believe that gender separate advisories have merit, there are additional lines of inquiry that may be useful in more fully understanding the implementation and impact of gender-separate programs. In terms of implementation, we believe that it would be helpful to more fully study how the potential relationships created by the interaction of the age of the students and the gender of the advisors influence what goes on in advisory programs:

Our findings make it quite clear that the teachers believed that advisory was less effective when all boy advisory programs were staffed by female teachers. A couple of questions come to mind: Would the eighth-grade boys be willing to have the same kind of open discussions with female teachers as they did with male teachers, or would they act much more like the sixth-grade boys? Would sixth-grade boys be less rambunctious and more open to serious discussions with male advisors? Given that teaching tends to be more feminine, do girls and boys benefit differentially from advisory programs that have mixed genders or separate genders?

Both students and teachers believed that in order for separate gender advisory classes to be fully operational, it was best to match the genders of the students and teacher. Ultimately, we believe that this study suggests allboy and all-girl advisories have merit, and schools looking to improve or expand upon their advisory program should consider this as viable option.

• In your opinion, what impact has gender-segregated advisory had on the climate at Tri-Valley?

• What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of the program?

• How has planning activities for one gender affected your workload?

• [For opposite-sex advisors only] Are there specific challenges in planning and implementing advisory for members of the opposite sex?

• How did you decide to implement the gender-segregated advisory?

• What do you see as its advantages and disadvantages?

• Please characterize the student, teacher, and parent responses to this program.

• Have you considered segregating more classes by gender? Why/why not?

• Acting yourself;

• Activities;

• Confidentiality;

• Gender roles;

• Importance of relaxing;

• Just a female;

• Mutual gender interests;

• Neediness;

• Openness;

• Opposing perceptions;

• Rumors;

• Same gender understanding;

• Student empowerment/democracy;

• Too personal; and

• Trust.