Role models, school improvement and the ‘gender gap’—do men bring out the best in boys and women the best in girls?1

By B. Carrington, Peter Tymms, Christine Merrell. 2008

250 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A number of countries are running role model recruitment drives under the assumption that like is good for like: ethnic minority teachers should teach ethnic minority children, women should teach girls, and so on. The empirical basis for this would appear to be case study and personal reflection. This article will examine quantitative data to test the hypothesis that male teachers produce more positive attitudes amongst boys and female teachers amongst girls. Using data from the Performance Indicators in Primary Schools (PIPS) Project, information from 413 separate classes for 11 year-olds (in England) was examined. One hundred and thirteen were taught by males and 300 by females. All the pupils completed questionnaires that were designed to measure attitude to school, reading, mathematics and science. In addition, background data on those pupils were collected, including cognitive measures, attainment scores, ability measures and home background measures. The data were examined to look at attitudes using multilevel models controlling for background factors. The analysis concentrated on interaction effects between the gender of the teacher and the gender of the pupil and the results gave little support for those who advocate recruitment drives with role models in mind.

Subfields: Education, Gender Studies

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ecf4ae116a42c98e7f91c111ebea6417db8d41ce

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Citations in the corpus

What explains the performance of students in a heterogeneous environment? Conditional efficiency estimation with continuous and discrete environmental variables (2013, background): “Second, we include the average socioeconomic status (SES) and the percentage of girls at the school in order to capture peer effects that are related to the socioeconomic environment and (possibly) more motivated girls (Carrington et al., 2008).”
Engaging students: The role of teacher beliefs and interpersonal teacher behavior in fostering student engagement in vocational education (2014, background): “On the other hand, Carrington et al. (2008) found that students taught by female teachers showed more positive attitudes toward school.”
‘They do not relate to Black people like us’: Black teachers as role models for Black pupils (2009, background): “Research by Carrington, Tymms, and Merrell ( 2008 , 7) has also shown that ‘matching teachers and learners by gender’ produces no ‘discernible impact on either boys’ or girls’’ attainment.”
Men, women and STEM: Why the differences and what should be done? (2020, background): “Note that some evidence suggests that same-sex role models have no effect on female STEM participation or even a negative effect (see, e.g. Bamberger, 2014; Betz & Sekaquaptewa, 2012; Carrington et al., 2008).”
Boys' ‘underachievement’ and the feminization of teaching (2008, background): “Indeed, there is a considerable body of evidence from England and Scotland to show that overall performance of boys not only tends to be lower than girls across the curriculum, but that the gender gap in achievement is particularly pronounced in language‐based subjects (eg, Carrington, Tymms, and Me”
Does the gender of the teacher really matter? Seven‐ to eight‐year‐olds’ accounts of their interactions with their teachers (2007, background): “, 2005a , b ) respectively, has given particular attention to the significance of the gender of the teacher in the elementary or primary school sector.”
A scalable goal-setting intervention closes both the gender and ethnic minority achievement gap (2015, background): “…disadvantage of men, often propose that the underrepresentation of men in teaching is a problem that needs to be addressed by hiring more male teachers (for example, Arnot et al., 1999), although there is no proof that this strategy has any effect (Martin and Marsh, 2005; Carrington et al., 2008).”
Sources of Inspiration: The role of significant persons in young people's choice of science in higher education (2012, unknown): “Adamuti-Trache & Andres, 2008 ; Carrington, Tymms, & Merrell, 2008 ; Hazari, Sonnert, Sadler, & Shanahan, 2010 ).”