A teacher鈥檚 gender has a significant effect on student academic performance, perhaps contributing to national achievement gaps between boys and girls in certain subjects, according to new analysis of federal data.
The , published in the fall issue of the journal , examined results from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey, a 1988 U.S. Department of Education initiative that collected test scores and questionnaire responses from more than 20,000 8th graders and their teachers.
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The study鈥檚 author, , an associate professor of economics at Swarthmore College, found that 鈥渢he overall effect of having a woman teacher instead of a man raises the achievement of girls by 4 percent of a standard deviation and lowers the achievement of boys by roughly the same amount. 鈥︹��
In examining why a teacher鈥檚 gender would affect student performance, Dee says the NELS data contain 鈥渟uggestive evidence鈥� that teachers鈥� and students鈥� opinions about each other are 鈥渟haped in part by gender characteristics.鈥�
鈥淲hen a class is headed by a woman,鈥� Dee writes, 鈥渂oys are more likely to be seen as disruptive, while girls are less likely to be seen as either disruptive or inattentive.鈥� Further, both boys and girls had 鈥渇ewer positive reactions鈥� to subjects taught by a teacher of the opposite gender.
Dee notes that, because most teachers today are women, his findings are particularly important in connection with boys.
Dee cautions against seeing his study as necessarily making a case for single-sex classrooms, however, since 鈥済ender dynamics鈥� may differ in such settings. Instead, he suggests the effects of 鈥渕ore limited interventions鈥濃�攕uch as teacher-training initiatives that examine gender biases and different learning styles鈥攂e considered as well.
