The Teacher Bias Against Girls and Math
By KJ DELL'ANTONIA
Another discouraging research headline: Teachers Think White Females Lag Behind in Math.
Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin found that high school math teachers rated the math abilities of their white female students lower than those of their white male peers, even when their grades and test scores were comparable. (The researchers say previous research has already documented a racial bias.)
In examining the data from a cohort of 15,000 students from their sophomore year of high school, into higher education and the work force, Catherine Riegle-Crumb found a “subtle” but “definitely present” tendency among high school teachers to deem their white female students less competent than white male students with similar grades and scores, and to consider them less comfortable in a particular math class, or to be less capable of advancing.
The bias “may very well be something they are not consciously aware of,” says Dr. Riegle-Crumb, but that doesn’t mean it’s without influence. How do we help our teenage girls combat that?
Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin found that high school math teachers rated the math abilities of their white female students lower than those of their white male peers, even when their grades and test scores were comparable. (The researchers say previous research has already documented a racial bias.)
In examining the data from a cohort of 15,000 students from their sophomore year of high school, into higher education and the work force, Catherine Riegle-Crumb found a “subtle” but “definitely present” tendency among high school teachers to deem their white female students less competent than white male students with similar grades and scores, and to consider them less comfortable in a particular math class, or to be less capable of advancing.
The bias “may very well be something they are not consciously aware of,” says Dr. Riegle-Crumb, but that doesn’t mean it’s without influence. How do we help our teenage girls combat that?
Today in class I said that bias is often subtle. But I forgot to say that bias is often UNCONSCIOUS, meaning we're not even aware of it!!!
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