Failing to notice? Uneven teachers’ attention to boys and girls in the classroom

Abstract

Abstract This paper analyzes whether teachers’ attention to boys and girls differs in low-performing schools in Chile, where large gender gaps in test scores are also observed. We coded 237 videotaped classes of fourth graders, identifying specific behaviors of teachers toward boys and girls. The results show a general imbalance in teachers’ attention and interactions favoring boys. Gender attention gap is correlated with lower scores in math for girls on Chile’s national standardized test (SIMCE). The gender attention gap was also greater in general in classrooms in which teachers had overall worse interactions with students, as measured by the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). The evidence in this paper contributes to the discussion about whether traditional measures of teacher–student interactions really capture all that matters for learning.

JEL Classification O12, J16, I2