Current discussions of diversity tend to focus primarily on broad categories of difference within the student population-age, gender, race, ethnicity, ability. These discussions have been useful in making educators more aware of the diversity of students and student needs. Some critics, however, have begun to question their value as a basis for classroom practice, arguing that the focus on the general qualities of large populations is of limited practical value to teachers, who work with individual students rather than populations, and who may therefore require more information on the nature of individual variation within populations. This thesis considers some of the ways in which the experience of individual students may relate to the larger patterns of diversity present in the classroom. Specifically, it explores age-and genderrelated patterns in student attitudes toward writing in six Iowa community college composition classes. Student attitudes were measured across four domains-control, writing apprehension, student agency, and collaboration. Gender appeared to have a significant effect on overall writing apprehension scores; differences in control scores by age x pre/post scores were moderately significant. Interactions between these patterns were considered; a significant age X gender interaction was found in the writing apprehension domain. Finally, the study considered the relationship between these patterns and the experience of five individual students within the study population.
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