Teachers Are Hard-Wired To Give Girls Better Grades, Study Says

Teachers give higher grades to girls than to boys with the same academic ability, according to a study published today in the British Journal of Sociology of Education.

And the bias is evident across different types of schools and for different teacher characteristics, suggesting teachers are hard-wired to give girls higher marks.

The size of the gap is considerable and could have significant long-term consequences, both on college admission and employment prospects, the researchers say.

“There is a strong correlation between having higher grades and desirable educational outcomes, such as gaining admission to good colleges or having a lower probability of dropping out of school,” says researcher Ilaria Lievore, at Italy’s University of Trento.

“Consequently, higher grades are also correlated with other outcomes, such as having higher earnings, a better job or even higher life satisfaction.”

The gender gap is a common feature of education systems around the world. In standardized tests, girls tend to outperform boys in humanities, languages and reading skills, while boys tend to do better in math, but when grades are awarded by teachers, girls do better in all subjects.

But today’s study is thought to be the first to demonstrate that the problem is systemic, rather than being dependent on types of school, the gender mix in the classroom or individual teachers.

Researchers compared the results of standardized anonymous tests taken by almost 40,000 15 and 16-year-olds in language and math with the grades the same students were awarded in classroom tests.

While the results of the anonymous tests followed the expected pattern, with girls outperforming boys in languages and boys doing better in math, in the non-anonymous classroom tests the girls scored higher in both subjects.

And the disparity could mean the difference between boys getting a pass and a fail in some subjects.

The average grade for girls in language was 6.6 out of 10, compared with 6.2 for boys, and in math it was 6.3 for girls and 5.9 for boys, just under the pass mark of 6.

Analysis showed that when a girl and a boy were of similar ability, as measured by a standardized test, the girl would get a higher mark in the classroom test.

Researchers examined the type of school and the size and gender composition of classes made any difference, as well as characteristics of teachers, such as their gender and how long they had been teaching.

Only two factors were found to make a difference, and only in math. The gap was larger if the classes were bigger, and girls were further ahead in technical and academic schools than in vocational schools.

The findings suggest the bias towards girls is systemic and not a feature of particular schools or individual teachers, researchers say.

Possible explanations are that teachers unconsciously reward behavior seen as “typically female”, such as neatness and sitting quietly, because it makes their job easier.

Another put forward by the researchers is that teachers deliberately inflate girls’ math grades as a way of encouraging them in a subject where they are often seen as weaker.

Researchers caution that the study was carried out on Italian students and there may be different reasons for the gender gap in other countries, and that they used grades awarded part-way through the school year, which may differ from the final grades.

But their work suggests that tackling the bias against boys may be beyond the reach of individual schools, and that there are wider factors - such as social attitudes - that need to be addressed.