Female vs. Male Teachers

Do students learn differently from male and female teachers?

Jun 5, 2006

Economist Thomas S. Dee of Swarthmore College has been examining data on eighth-graders since 1988. He has documented the effects of male and female teachers.

Male Teachers

An article by Richard Morin in the Washington Post states that Dee has made some discoveries. Having a male teacher can improve the reading gap in 13 year olds. The bad news is that it only improves for boys. It is actually harmful for girls.

Female Teachers

How about a female teacher in science? Again, great results for raising science achievement in girls. However, achievement goes down for boys under the same conditions.

In The Beginning -- Kindergarten

Boys and girls seem to do equally well in kindergarten. But, by third grade the boys achieve higher in math and lower in reading. This gap widens as students progress through the grades.

Middle School

The middle grades have predominantly female teachers which seems to assist the girls. In fact, 80% of middle school reading teachers are female. Dee summarizes that boys are being handicapped by this imbalance.

Solution

Dee proposes assigning female teachers to girls and male teachers to boys. He finds that both genders will achieve better if this is done. The question one must ask is, "Where will we find the male teachers with the low salaries in education?" There is a teacher shortage presently looming.

College

Boys are well represented in math on a college campus but when "reading" is involved, girls dominate. Dee stated in a recent paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research that because of the female reading teachers, boys lag 1.5 years behind girls in reading by high school. He thinks this is hurting the boys chances of going to a university and doing well if they decide to try college.

Others Share a Similar View

Dan Kindlon, Ph.D. and Michael Thompson, Ph.D. are co-authors of the book, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys. This book is powerful reading for anyone raising or teaching boys. These two leading psychologists have done research for over 35 years and state that boys are at a higher risk for suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, violence, and loneliness.

Frustration in school may be just one more card in the deck stacked against boys.

Read previous articles on Educational Issues.

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