Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer
OECD. The ABC of Gender Equality in Education: Aptitude, Behaviour. (2015). Confidence, PISA, OECD Publishing. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dx.doi.org&#x2F;10.1787&#x2F;9789264229945-en" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dx.doi.org&#x2F;10.1787&#x2F;9789264229945-en</a> on page 159<p>&gt; Train teachers to be aware of their own gender biases The report also shows that teachers generally award girls higher marks than boys [for the same exact work], given what would be expected after considering their performance in PISA. This practice is particularly apparent in language-of-instruction courses. Girls’ better marks may reflect the fact that they tend to be “better students” than boys: they tend to do what is required and expected of them, thanks to better self-regulation skills, and they are more driven to excel in school. In addition, girls appear to be stronger in displaying the knowledge they have acquired (i.e. solving an algebraic equation) than in problem solving, the latter of which is a central component of the PISA test. But this report reveals that the gender gap observed in both school marks and PISA scores is not the same in both language-of-instruction classes and mathematics. The fact that it is much wider in the language-of-instruction courses suggests that teachers may harbour conscious or unconscious stereotyped notions about girls’ and boys’ strengths and weaknesses in school subjects, and, through the marks they give, reinforce those notions among their students and their students’ families<p>---------<p>Cappelen, A. W., Falch, R., &amp; Tungodden, B. (2019). The Boy Crisis: Experimental Evidence on the Acceptance of Males Falling Behind. SSRN Electronic Journal. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.2139&#x2F;ssrn.3348981" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.2139&#x2F;ssrn.3348981</a><p>Abstract<p>&gt; The ‘boy crisis’ prompts the question of whether people interpret inequalities differently depending on whether males or females are lagging behind. We study this question in a novel large-scale distributive experiment involving more than 5,000 Americans. Our data provide strong evidence of a gender bias against low-performing males, particularly among female participants. A large set of additional treatments establishes that the gender bias reflects statistical fairness discrimination. The study provides novel evidence on the nature of discrimination and on how males falling behind are perceived by society.<p>From the conclusion<p>&gt; The emergence of the ‘boy crisis’ prompts the question of whether people interpret gender inequalities differently depending on whether males or females are lagging behind. We study this question in a novel large-scale economic experiment conducted with a general population from the United States. The participants act as spectators and distribute earnings between two workers in a controlled labor market environment. When initial earnings are based on merit, we find that the spectators are gender-biased against males. We show that this gender bias is driven by female spectators and we provide evidence suggesting that the underlying mechanism is statistical fairness discrimination, where spectators interpret a male loser as someone who has exerted less effort than a female loser. Our study provides new evidence on the nature of gender discrimination, by showing how the perception of females being disadvantaged may cause people to infer that low-performing males have exerted less effort than low-performing females. […]<p>--------<p>Perspectives in Male Psychology, Louise Liddon &amp; John Barry, page 79, about &quot;Lavy, V. (2008, October). Do gender stereotypes reduce girls’ or boys’ human capital outcomes? Evidence from a natural experiment. Journal of Public Economics, 92(10–11), 2083–2105. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.jpubeco.2008.02.009" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.jpubeco.2008.02.009</a>&quot;:<p>&gt; An Israeli study of nearly 30,000 pupils in more than 300 schools examined data for three cohorts of Jewish secular high-school seniors in the years 2000-2002 (Lavy, 2004). Student matriculation exams were routinely graded in two ways: an external grade which is blind to name and sex of the pupil, and an internal grade which is non-blind. The pupil&#x27;s final grade is a mean of the internal and external grades. This study found that boys were given lower grades in the non-blind assessments across all nine subjects studied. The researcher, having ruled out the other possible explanations, concluded the discrepancy in scoring was a result of bias in the unblinded grading. A strength of this study is that it is a natural experiment.<p>--------<p>Terrier, C. (2020, August). Boys lag behind: How teachers’ gender biases affect student achievement. Economics of Education Review, 77, 101981. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.econedurev.2020.101981" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.econedurev.2020.101981</a><p>&gt; Without teachers’ bias in favor of girls, the gender gap in choosing a science track would be 12.5% larger in favor of boys. [...] Girls’ better behaviour in class is not behind this nudge forwards.<p>------<p>Di Liberto, A., Casula, L., &amp; Pau, S. (2021, November). Grading practices, gender bias and educational outcomes: evidence from Italy. Education Economics, 30(5), 481–508. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1080&#x2F;09645292.2021.2004999" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1080&#x2F;09645292.2021.2004999</a><p>&gt; We study if the Italian school system suffers from gender bias when judging students. To this aim, we use a differences-in-differences approach that compares the teachers&#x27; assessments and the standardized test scores that the students receive during the school year. We have census data for all Italian fifth and sixth graders in two different subjects, math and language, that include a rich set of additional controls. Our evidence reveals that, since primary school, boys are graded less favourably than girls in both math and language. This result is also confirmed for middle school students (sixth graders), and it holds even when (a) we separate the analysis between the most and least developed Italian regions, (b) we control for possible gender-specific attitude towards cheating and teachers&#x27; manipulation and (c) we introduce class and school fixed effects in the models. Comparing the results obtained across different levels of schooling and subjects, we cannot clearly identify the role of specific mechanisms in determining the gender bias. Overall the analysis suggests further study on the role of teachers&#x27; characteristics.<p>----------<p>Lucas Gortazara, David Martinez de Lafuenteb, AinhoaVega-Bayoc (July 2022), <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.tate.2022.103725" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;doi.org&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.tate.2022.103725</a><p>&gt; In this paper, we study the presence of systematic differences between teacher non-blind assessments and external blindly graded standardized tests as a measure of grading misalignment. Using a large administrative database covering two student cohorts (N = 31, 183 pupils) from publicly-funded schools in the Basque Country (Spain), we explore the grading gaps found between these two type of assessments for several student characteristics using fixed effects modeling. We find that, after controlling for standardized achievement, systematic teachers’ under-assessment exists for student groups that, on average, lag behind in school: boys, children from an immigrant background, and low SES students. The observed data patterns withstand several robustness checks, including the use of instrumental variables approach (IV) and other alternative regression specifications.<p>Source: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;LeftWingMaleAdvocates&#x2F;comments&#x2F;xx5nj4&#x2F;comment&#x2F;irdlrzd&#x2F;?utm_source=reddit&amp;utm_medium=web2x&amp;context=3" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;LeftWingMaleAdvocates&#x2F;comments&#x2F;xx5n...</a>