– According to two recent studies, girls are significantly penalized by teachers’ biases. The first study demonstrates that girls’ math grades are negatively influenced while boys’ math grades are positively influenced by hidden gender stereotypes. The second research shows that young black girls are particularly disadvantaged for being assertive in the classroom.

– Generally, girls score better than boys on name-blind math tests. However, once presented with boy and girl names, teachers give higher scores to boys. Girls whose fathers are better educated than their mothers, as well as girls who come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, are the most affected. Black girls are even twelve! times more likely to be suspended at school than their white peers.

– One of the studies revealed that teachers spend up to two thirds of their time talking to male students, are more prone to interrupt girls than boys, and tend to praise and encourage boys more than girls. These kind of biases are probably part of the reason why the United States has one of the larger gender gaps in math and science performance around the world.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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