The terrain of gender inequalities in education has seen much change in recent decades. This article reviews the empirical research and theoretical perspectives on gender inequalities in educational performance and attainment from early childhood to young adulthood. Much of the literature on children and adolescents attends to performance differences between girls and boys. Of course, achievement in elementary and secondary school is linked to the level of education one ultimately attains including high school completion, enrollment in postsecondary education, college completion, and graduate and professional school experiences. We recommend three directions for future research: (a) interdisciplinary efforts to understand gender differences in cognitive development and noncognitive abilities in early childhood, (b) research on the structure and practices of schooling, and (c) analyses of how gender differences might amplify other kinds of inequalities, such as racial, ethnic, class, or nativity inequalities.

/pdf/gender-inequalities-in-education-2rkanamll9.pdf

Gender inequalities in education.

One cause proposed for boys’ relatively lower academic achievement is a “feminisation” of schools that might result in a lack of fit between boys’ self-concept and academic engagement. Research so far has investigated math-male and language-female stereotypes, but no school-female stereotypes. Our study tested for implicit gender stereotyping of school and its impact on boys’ achievement in N = 122 ninth-graders from a large city in Western Germany using the Go/No-go Association Task (GNAT). Gender role self-concept and grades in math (representing an academic domain stereotyped as male) and German (domain stereotyped as female) were assessed using written questionnaires. It was found that, overall, students associated school more strongly with female than with male, and that this association of school with female was related to boys’ academic achievement. The more strongly boys associated school with female and the more they ascribed negative masculine traits to themselves, the lower their grades in German were. Boys’ academic achievement in math was unrelated to the extent to which they perceived school as feminine and themselves as masculine. Girls’ grades in both German and math were unrelated to their gender stereotyping of school. These findings emphasize the importance of fit between a student’s gender, gender role self-concept and gender stereotyping of school for academic achievement. Strategies to improve this fit are discussed.

Is School Feminine? Implicit Gender Stereotyping of School as a Predictor of Academic Achievement

This article examines the impact of single-sex schooling on a range of academic outcomes for a sample of British people born in 1958. In terms of the overall level of qualifications achieved, single-sex schooling is positive for girls at age 16 but neutral for boys, while at later ages, single-sex schooling is neutral for both sexes. However, single-sex schooling is linked to the attainment of qualifications in gender-atypical subject areas for both sexes, not just during the school years, but also later in life.

/pdf/single-sex-schooling-and-academic-attainment-at-school-and-3gu99v6kal.pdf

Single-Sex Schooling and Academic Attainment at School and Through the Lifecourse:

Trend statistics reveal a striking reversal of a gender gap that has once favoured males: Girls have surpassed boys in many aspects of the educational system. At the same time, the share of female teachers has grown in almost all countries of the western world. There is an ongoing, contentious debate on whether the gender of the teacher can account, in part, for the growing educational disadvantage of males. In this study, we use large-scale data from IGLU-E, an expansion of PIRLS in Germany, to estimate whether there is a causal effect of having a same-sex teacher on student outcomes. We estimate effects for typical ‘female’ subjects and typical ‘male’ subjects as well as for different student outcomes (objective test scores and more subjective teacher’s grades). We find virtually no evidence of a benefit from having a same-sex teacher, neither for boys nor for girls. These findings suggest that the popular call for more male teachers in primary school is not the key to tackle the growing disadvantage of boys.

/pdf/unmasking-the-myth-of-the-same-sex-teacher-advantage-2dfd1ftgc2.pdf

Unmasking the Myth of the Same-Sex Teacher Advantage

Background. Student's temperament plays a significant role in teacher's perception of the student's learning style, educational competence (EC), and teachability. Hence, temperament contributes to student's academic achievement and teacher's subjective ratings of school grades. However, little is known about the effect of gender and teacher's age on this association.

Aims. We examined the effect of teacher's and student's gender and teacher's age on teacher-perceived temperament, EC, and teachability, and whether there is significant same gender or different gender association between teachers and students in this relationship.

Sample. The participants were population-based sample of 3,212 Finnish adolescents (M= 15.1 years) and 221 subject teachers.

Methods. Temperament was assessed with Temperament Assessment Battery for Children – Revised and Revised Dimensions of Temperament Survey batteries and EC with three subscales covering Cognitive ability, Motivation, and Maturity. Data were analyzed with multi-level modelling.

Results. Teachers perceived boys’ temperament and EC more negatively than girls’. However, the differences between boys and girls were not as large when perceived by male teachers, as they were when perceived by female teachers. Males perceived boys more positively and more capable in EC and teachability than females. They were also stricter regarding their perceptions of girls’ traits. With increasing age, males perceived boys’ inhibition as higher and mood lower. Generally, the older the teacher, the more mature he/she perceived the student.

Conclusions. Teachers’ ratings varied systematically by their gender and age, and by students’ gender. This bias may have an effect on school grades and needs be taken into consideration in teacher education.

Gender differences in teachers' perceptions of students' temperament, educational competence, and teachability.

One hundred seventy-five third- and fourth-grade boys who were identified as struggling readers participated in a 10-week intervention to determine the effect of the reading teachers’ sex on boys’ reading performance, self-perceptions as readers, and view of reading as a masculine, feminine, or gender-neutral activity. Findings indicated no main effects on reading performance, yet main effects of teacher’s sex on two sub-scales of reader self-perception emerged. Evidence of interactions showed that boys responded differentially to the intervention—they responded better to female teachers. Further analysis revealed that the boys’ responses varied as much as a response to individual male teachers as to the teacher’s sex.

Good-bye, Mr. Chips: Male Teacher Shortages and Boys’ Reading Achievement

In response to concerns about boys' academic underachievement as well as the international gender imbalance in our teaching force composition, a call has been made to hire more male teachers and practice 'boy-friendly' pedagogy. Our investigation of effects of male reading teachers and use of computer-based books demonstrated their ability to de-feminise boys' views of reading but no differential effects were evident on boys' reading achievement or reader self-perceptions between boys taught by males or by females, whether or not they use technology in their reading practices.

Effects of technology and male teachers on boys' reading

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Herb Katz

Author Tools

Chat about Author

Papers

Good-bye, Mr. Chips: Male Teacher Shortages and Boys’ Reading Achievement

Effects of technology and male teachers on boys' reading