Importance of gender homophily in the computer science classroom

This study explores how particular communication behaviors influence women´s experience of the CS classroom in the United States. In particular, it investigates the correlation between students´ perceived gender similarities with others in the CS discipline or homophily, their feelings about the closeness and openness of communication between people or immediacy, the resulting presence or absence of a supportive communication classroom climate, which is understood as a set of systemic entities whose presence and dimensionality may be inferred from students´ and teachers´ perceptions of psychosocial attributes of the classroom social system, and finally, their intention to remain in the CS program.