Study: Teacher's Gender Affects Learning

Carlos Ovando, 14, left, and his sister Genesis, 12, do their homework in their Hialeah, Fla., home Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2006. Of more than 2.2 million children eligible for tutoring, only 19 percent of them received it in 2004-05, according to auditors at the congressional Government Accountability Office but the number of students in tutoring almost quadrupled from 2003 to 2005.(AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) (Wilfredo Lee - AP)

The study found switching up teachers actually could narrow achievement gaps between boys and girls, but one gender would gain at the expense of the other.

Dee also contends that gender influences attitudes.

For example, with a female teacher, boys were more likely to be seen as disruptive. Girls were less likely to be considered inattentive or disorderly.

In a class taught by a man, girls were more likely to say the subject was not useful for their future. They were less likely to look forward to the class or to ask questions.

Dee said he isolated a teacher's gender as an influence by accounting for several other factors that could affect student performance. But his study is sure to be scrutinized.

"The data, as he presents them, are far from convincing," said Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center, which works to advance the progress of women.

Greenberger said she found Dee's conclusions to be questionable and inconsistent. More broadly, she said, boys and girls benefit by having male and female teachers as role models.

"I don't think there are many parents or students, looking back over their educational careers, who haven't been inspired by a teacher of the opposite sex," she said.

"And many have had very unhappy experiences with teachers of the same gender that they are. We have to be careful of too many generalizations," Greenberger said.

Student success cannot be narrowed to the gender of the teacher, said Reg Weaver, president of the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers' union.

Experienced teachers, good textbooks, smaller class sizes and modern equipment all influence how boys and girls do in class, Weaver said.

"Students benefit by having exposure to teachers who look like them, who can identify with their culture ... but this is just one variable among many," Weaver said.