The Effect of Teachers' Gender on Students' Perceived Educational Experiences: A Fixed-Effect Analysis.

Abstract

Existing studies have suggested that students benefit from the assignment of same-gendered teachers in terms of academic performance and behaviour (Ehrenberg, Goldhaber and Brewer, 1995; Dee, 2005). This paper looks into relationships between same-gendered students and teachers, from the student's perspective. It hypothesizes that a same-gender pairing affects how students perceive their subject teacher and the career relevance of their subjects taught. This is studied via a fixed-effects analysis of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS: 09) dataset, to compare the contemporaneous perceptions 9th grade students have of their math and science teachers. It concludes that the assignment of a same-gender teacher improves student perceptions of teachers for male students, but worsens student perceptions for female students. Female students are also more likely to continue taking courses relevant to the subjects taught by their female teachers, as they perceive these subjects as necessary for their future career.