High School Auto Mechanics Teacher Kristina Carlevatti knows what it’s like to be one of just a few females in a class filled with males. That was her frequent experience while earning a degree in Technical and Trade Education at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oswego. 

“There was the sense that you were being judged, like you didn’t know what you were doing, so the guys might try to help you or hit on you,” she said.

Carlevatti has been teaching auto repair for six years now at Myers Park High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, where a booming automotive industry has produced plenty of jobs.

Boys had dominated the shop courses until Carlevatti started an all-girls Intro to Auto Class this past school year.  When only co-ed trade classes were offered at the school, Carlevatti would see one or two girls at most, but Intro to Auto filled up quickly, drawing 16 girls.

Girls-only Trade Classes like Carlevatti’s are gaining traction and the timing is right. 

A shortage of Skilled Workers is driving up wages in the Trades, especially in traditionally male-dominated professions such as auto repair, construction and welding.

Nationwide, only 2% of Auto Mechanics, 3% of Construction Workers and 4.5% of Welders are Women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

High schools like Myers Park have found that when they offer female-only trade courses, the girls sign up.

The trouble is, such courses could run afoul of Title IX Regulations regarding single-sex education.  The law prohibits separation of genders in Vocational Training.

Still, advocates see plenty of reason to forge ahead and the labor shortage is just one factor.

They argue that all-girls trade classes embolden girls to push against gender stereotypes that threaten to hold them back, whether they want to swing a hammer or break into the boardroom.

Shop Class, it seems, is a new path to Female Empowerment.

Evelyn Harris, who just finished her junior year at Myers Park, never considered taking an auto course until Carlevatti’s class, but once she started, something clicked: “This is ‘my kind’ of class.  I ‘like the hands-on’ work, ‘getting oily and greasy, showing the guys I can do what they do.’”

For Harris, there’s another advantage.  The class, she said, has become a Sisterhood of sorts: “We ‘all learn together and teach each other.’  ‘It’s not a competition.’”

That sense of bonding appears to be common among students in single-gender classes, according to Rosemary Salomone, who is a Professor of Law at St. John’s University and author of the book: Same, Different, Equal: Rethinking Single-Sex Schooling.

Salomone says that while some studies have shown single-gender classes don’t improve academic achievement for males or females, there’s evidence to support modest claims of benefits in less quantifiable areas, such as self-esteem, belonging and motivation.

Yet Salomone, who helped draft the Department of Education’s 2006 Title IX Regulations for single-sex public education, questions the legality of girls-only shop classes.

The regulations allow the use of Federal dollars only for single-gender classes in academic subjects such as math and engineering.

Vocational Classes have generally been prohibited from separating genders, Salomone says, because of the history of schools channeling girls into lower-paying technical fields.

To Continue Reading This Labor News Story, Go To: https://hechingerreport.org/girls-only-trade-classes-are-spreading-and-upending-stereotypes/