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A gender gap in the classroom? Different perceptions of student engagement and teacher support

Boys are generally less successful at school than girls, especially in secondary education. More specifically, they tend to show lower achievement, higher dropout rates, and lower student engagement. Teacher support has been found to positively influence students’ engagement and achievement. However, boys and girls might perceive the support of their teachers differently. Moreover, teacher support could relate to boys’ and girls’ outcomes differently. This dissertation aims to clarify secondary school students’ perceptions of teacher support and examines the relationship between teacher support and engagement. In addition, our goal is to investigate male and female teachers’ perceptions of teacher support. Educational research and practice discussed possible differences between men and women as teachers for boys and girls. This discussion has not often considered actual supportive behavior of teachers and the concept of gender as a broader sociocultural construct. The data used in this dissertation were collected in Grades 7 and 8 in (a selection of) 59 secondary schools in Flanders in the light of the Procrustes project, searching for gender-related factors that predict low achievement, retention, and dropout of secondary school students. 

A first chapter reviewed literature on differences between boys’ and girls’ behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement in secondary education. Girls generally showed higher engagement than boys, especially for behavioral engagement, more specifically at the school level. For particular subjects and activities in class, the advantage of girls was less consistent. These findings call for more research on boys’ and girls’ engagement regarding individual subjects and activities. 

In the second chapter, we investigated, for Dutch language classes, sex differences in the relationship between students’ perceptions of three dimensions of teacher support (i.e., autonomy support, structure, and involvement) and student engagement. A total of 385 Grade 7 students (58% boys) of six secondary schools in Flanders and their Dutch language teachers participated. A model was constructed with each of the teacher support dimensions as an independent variable and behavioral engagement as a latent dependent variable with three indicators (i.e., teacher, student, and observer report). The results suggested that boys showed lower engagement than girls and that they considered their teachers to be less supportive for all dimensions. Moreover, autonomy support appeared to be more important for boys’ engagement, whereas structure and involvement were equally relevant for both boys’ and girls’ engagement. 

The third chapter investigated differences in boys’ and girls’ perceptions of their actual teachers and of hypothetical situations (vignettes) depicting teachers who differ in autonomy support and structure. Participants were 377 Grade 8 students from the academic track in eight secondary schools in Flanders. The results showed that boys rated their actual teachers lower in autonomy support and structure. The scores for the vignettes indicated that boys were less negative than girls about a hypothetical teacher that provided low structure, whereas they were less positive than girls about a teacher that provided high autonomy support. We suggested that boys’ and girls’ perceptions of the vignettes might differ according to what teacher behavior they consider important. Moreover, the hypothesis that teachers in fact act differently towards boys versus girls could not be dismissed. 

The fourth chapter examined male and female teachers’ perceptions of their provided teacher support and the role of two sociocultural aspects of gender. These were (1) restricted emotionality or the inability to express emotions and (2) pressure for gender conformity or the extent to which a man or a woman feels pressure to be a typical man or woman (i.e., conformity to gender stereotypes). A sample of 1,244 teachers (28.5% male) in 59 secondary schools in Flanders filled out questionnaires. The results revealed that male and female teachers each scored higher for different dimensions of teacher support (e.g., male teachers scored higher for autonomy support and female teachers for structure). Additional analyses demonstrated that most of the sex differences in teacher support were mediated by restricted emotionality and pressure for gender conformity. Moreover, both sociocultural gender variables were negatively related to teacher support.

Altogether the four studies demonstrate that boys and girls indeed perceive their teachers differently, even in an experimentally controlled situation, and that this perception is related to their engagement, which appears to be lower for boys. These results stress the need for careful reflection and optimization of teacher support, especially concerning autonomy support, when we aim to close the gender gap in students’ engagement and perceptions of teacher support.

Date:1 Jan 2012 →  5 Jul 2016
Keywords:gender differences, education, student engagement, student motivation, secondary education
Disciplines:Education curriculum, Education systems, General pedagogical and educational sciences, Specialist studies in education, Other pedagogical and educational sciences
Project type:PhD project