Countries around the world are striving to close the gender achievement gap and encourage more girls to take and excel in science, technology and maths-related topics. Alas, new research from the University of Southern California reminds us that teachers themselves may be holding girls back.
The study primarily posed two core questions. Firstly, they wanted to know whether teachers ratings for students differed depending on the race, gender or ethnicity evident from the student’s name, and then does the race and/or gender of the teacher make any difference to this.
The results showed that while teachers typically rated no differently on either racial or gender lines, they did nonetheless assume that girls, and particularly girls of color, had lower maths ability than boys. As such, the lowest-rated group was nearly always females of color.
“Our study suggests that even teachers affected by harmful stereotypes are not free of bias,” the researchers say. “The findings suggest that implicit stereotypical messages people may have received throughout their lives could lead them to internalize these messages.”
Biased calculations
The researchers identified a range of common maths problems from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) tests, which are given to middle school students across the United States. The answers to each question included the reasoning behind them. Each was randomly assigned to a sample of student names that are typically associated with black, Hispanic and white boys and girls, with the participating teachers asked to rate the student’s work.
The results suggest that teachers typically evaluated the correctness of the solutions evenly, regardless of the gender or race of the student. There was nonetheless an underlying bias for partially correct and incorrect responses.
White-sounding names typically scored higher with both white and teachers of color, while boys were also typically favored over girls in terms of their perceived mathematical ability.
“As educators and teachers, we need to disrupt this pattern by paying close attention to how our implicit beliefs might affect our students,” the researchers say.
The researchers believe that their work is largely consistent with past work that has shown that oppressed groups are often guilty of both accepting and perpetuating negative racial and gender stereotypes. This results in teachers of color being more critical of students of color, which in turn leads to lower expectations of students of their own race.
A similar phenomenon may result in female teachers having internalized sexism and therefore perceive boys to be more capable at maths than girls are.
“Students’ perceptions of their academic ability are developed based on messages they receive from their social environment, especially those of their teachers and parents,” the researchers say. “These messages potentially contribute to their self-efficacy, self-competence and decision to select a STEM career.”
So what can be done to improve matters? The authors suggest that past research has highlighted the benefits of teacher-student racial matching for pupils of color, so having greater racial and gender diversity in classrooms may help, especially if they haven’t internalized stereotypes already.
It’s certainly a topic that warrants future analysis, especially as countries around the world are investing so much time and effort into encouraging STEM study among girls and ethnic minorities. If teachers’ implicit biases are undermining this drive, then it needs to be addressed.
“To create equity in our school systems and society,” the researchers conclude, “we need to provide more opportunities for teachers and educators to overcome their potential implicit biases.”
