T. Cline et C. Ertubey, THE IMPACT OF GENDER ON PRIMARY TEACHERS EVALUATIONS OF CHILDRENS DIFFICULTIES IN SCHOOL, British journal of educational psychology, 67, 1997, pp. 447-456
Background. More boys than girls receive provision to meet special edu
cational needs. It has been suggested that teachers' evaluations of ch
ildren's difficulties in school may be subject to gender bias. But the
evidence is inconsistent, and the methodology of some work that repor
ted bias has been criticised because the type of rating task that was
used may have encouraged stereotypic thinking (Langfeldt, 1993). Aims.
This study investigated whether gender of child would still have an i
nfluence on teacher's judgments ifa fuller context was provided for th
e stimulus and there was a more realistic rating task. Samples. The sa
mple comprised 523 teachers in 79 primary schools in London, the home
counties and the North-West of England. Methods, Participants complete
d questionnaires on what action might be required in their school for
children with difficulties who were described in short vignettes. The
children's gender was varied systematically. The construct of 'serious
ness', which had generally been left vague in earlier research, was gi
ven a concrete definition. Results, It was found that, when the experi
mental task was contextualised in this way, the gender-of-child effect
disappeared. Teacher characteristics such as gender did not influence
the results. Conclusions, These findings should be treated with some
caution as they relate to the small and restricted range of types of d
ifficulty that were included in the study and to a sample of primary s
chools in one society. However, they give support to an emphasis on 'r
ealism' in the method of investigation that is used for exploring teac
hers' judgments.