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Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

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Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#11

Everyday I think more and more about homeschooling my son and daughter. In business, you should never outsource your core competency. I wonder if I really should be outsourcing the raising of my kids,that I love most in the world (of course I love my husband too).

I wish we could. We have the possibility, but i have no idea where to start teaching school material.

And of course I'm terrified of the social aspect.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#12

Everyday I think more and more about homeschooling my son and daughter. In business, you should never outsource your core competency. I wonder if I really should be outsourcing the raising of my kids,that I love most in the world (of course I love my husband too).

Unfortunately it would seem from looking around that parenting is not a core competency for a lot of parents.

You're right. But, one, those parents are unlikely to homeschool. And, two, it would seem from looking around that it isn't a core competency for a lot of schools.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#13
The original title is misleading, as the paper doesn't answer "why".

> The researchers then looked whether factors, such as the type of school and the size and gender make-up of classes, were driving the gender grade gap.

> They also investigated whether characteristics of teachers themselves, such as how senior or experienced they were and whether they were male or female, helped explain girls' more generous grades.

> Only two factors were found to have an effect—and only in maths. The gender gap in maths grades was greater when classes were bigger. Girls were also graded as being further ahead than boys in technical and academic schools than they were in vocational schools.

> None of the other factors had any significant effect in reducing the gender grading gap.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#14
I worked as a teacher for a little while. Discount my anecdote if you like, but it always seemed to me that girls are more likely to be grade grubbers than boys.

(For those unfamiliar with the idiom, it means someone who pleads to the teacher to be given a higher grade. I don't know if there's a word in Italian.)

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#15

Everyday I think more and more about homeschooling my son and daughter. In business, you should never outsource your core competency. I wonder if I really should be outsourcing the raising of my kids,that I love most in the world (of course I love my husband too).

It seems like it's easier (or more efficient) to outsource education than socialization. Summer is a great time for additional education beyond the classroom. Then again, research suggests that homeschooling doesn't have an adverse socialization impact [1]... [1] https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/research/summaries/home...

Socialization in school might be positive for some children, but bullying is part of the curriculum in public schools and could subtract from any positive benefits for some children.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#16
Clickbaity title, since they don't have the answer and the paper says as much. They do have some guesses, anyone interested just skip the article and go to the conclusions section.

Guess 1 is female student behavior adaptation to what teachers want aside from academic performance:

> School and classroom environments might indeed be adapted to traditionally female behaviours (Lavy 2008). Female students might thus adopt such actual behaviours during class, including precision, order, modesty, and quietness, which go beyond the individuals’ academic performance, but which teachers may highly reward in terms of grades. ... Conversely, teachers may be likely to associate such behaviours only with female students, because girls are traditionally thought of as possessing these traits.

Guess 2 is gender bias over-compensation:

> Another theoretical explanation calls into play teacher overcompensation towards females. Girls are indeed often discussed in discrimination contexts, especially in speeches about gender differences in cognitive ability in dealing with the ‘hard subjects’. A possible explanation for the reason teachers are more generous in grading female students could be that teachers wish to avoid possible discrimination against girls as an ability-stigmatized group. Therefore, teachers may over-assess girls in the same way they sometimes over-assess non-native students, to avoid negative stereotyping (Alesina 2018). From another perspective, it is also possible that the over-assessment of female students’ competences in Mathematics partly represents a sort of ‘push’ to encourage the weaker students (Terrier 2015). As a consequence, this may translate into a positive discrimination which favours girls.

Guess 3 is simply noisy data (teachers using grades to manipulate students into performing better, according to whatever teachers think motivates boys vs. girls):

> A final interpretation of our results could stem from a limitation of our data. Indeed, our measure of student grading is derived from the midterm report card, rather than the final report card of the academic year. Teachers may consciously adopt specific grading practices at the midterm to trigger students’ effort differently according to their gender, to in turn obtain the best possible performance by the end of the academic year. Specifically, teachers could perceive that male students’ effort is more easily triggered by lower grades, which could encourage them to study harder to achieve a better grade, while female students’ effort to achieve higher grades may be more easily triggered via encouragement.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#17
post #9

Anecdotally I had a misandrist/sexist teacher in fourth grade. It was the first grade where they split our maths class. I didn't fail the class, but that teacher rode me extremely hard. She did do other abusive things, like encouraging students to bully each other, and she'd throw an eraser and hit me with a ruler on two separate occasions because she believed I wasn't awake enough. She recommended at the end of the…

The American public school system is a veritable penal colony proxy. My experience with math was much the same.

As someone on the tail end of the Bell curve and for whom such a monolithic system was a poor fit, I wasted over a dozen years of my life there, in unfortunately what were my most formative years.

Luckily my siblings are correcting that with their children.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like it's easier (or more efficient) to outsource education than socialization. Summer is a great time for additional education beyond the classroom. Then again, research suggests that homeschooling doesn't have an adverse socialization impact [1]... [1] https://responsiblehomeschooling.org/research/summaries/home...

Socialization in school might be positive for some children, but bullying is part of the curriculum in public schools and could subtract from any positive benefits for some children.

"If you don't send your kids to school, they won't fit in with society."

"Correct."

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#19
post #7

I like that this article puts the data on the table. I have no idea about what is the exact mechanism for the issue, but as the article notes, girls and boys have slightly different intellects. Furthermore, the eyes-of-the-beholder (teachers) regard them as slightly different creatures as well. And, it wouldn't surprise me if girls in general are nicer to the teachers; while teenager boys feel the pressure to act lik…

One factor I see with my own kids is that the girls are more likely to study for class exams, whereas boys will just "wing it" and only put the effort in for standardised national exams.

Re: Why do teachers give girls higher marks than boys? Researchers have the answer

#20

The original title is misleading, as the paper doesn't answer "why". > The researchers then looked whether factors, such as the type of school and the size and gender make-up of classes, were driving the gender grade gap. > They also investigated whether characteristics of teachers themselves, such as how senior or experienced they were and whether they were male or female, helped explain girls' more generous grades.…

> The original title is misleading, as the paper doesn't answer "why".

Story of the internet, right there.

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