Skiptir máli hvers kyns kennarinn er?

Rakst á þessa frétt í vefútgáfu Globe and Mail, nú fyrir stundu.  Ekki ætla ég mér að dæma um hvort þessar niðurstöður eru kórréttar eður ei, en finnst þetta athyglivert innlegg í umræðuna.

Mikið hefur verið rætt um vanda drengja í íslenska skólakerfinu undanfarin misseri, og því vakti þetta athygli mína.

 Nokkur sýnishorn:

"For all the differences between the sexes, here's one that might stir up debate in the teacher's lounge: Boys learn more from men and girls learn more from women.

That's the upshot of a provocative study by Thomas Dee, an associate professor of economics at Swarthmore College and visiting scholar at Stanford University. His study was to appear Monday in Education Next, a quarterly journal published by the Hoover Institution.

Vetted and approved by peer reviewers, Dr. Dee's research faces a fight for acceptance. Some leading education advocates dispute his conclusions and the way in which he reached them."

"Dr. Dee warns against drawing fast conclusions based on his work. He is not endorsing single-sex education, or any other policy.

Rather, he hopes his work will spur more research into gender's effect and what to do about it.

His study comes as the proportion of male teachers is at its lowest level in 40 years. Roughly 80 per cent of teachers in U.S. public schools are women."

"Dr. Dee found that having a female teacher instead of a male teacher raised the achievement of girls and lowered that of boys in science, social studies and English.

Looked at the other way, when a man led the class, boys did better and girls did worse.

The study found switching up teachers actually could narrow achievement gaps between boys and girls, but one gender would gain at the expense of the other."

"Dr. Dee also contends that gender influences attitudes.

For example, with a female teacher, boys were more likely to be seen as disruptive. Girls were less likely to be considered inattentive or disorderly.

In a class taught by a man, girls were more likely to say the subject was not useful for their future. They were less likely to look forward to the class or to ask questions."

Fréttina í heild má finna hér.  Á heimasíðu Education Next, má svo finna PDF skjal um rannsóknina.

En það verður fróðlegt vita hvert þessi umræða fer, ekki þekki ég hvernig þessum málum er háttað á Íslandi, en þykist þó vita að þar sé einnig yfirgæfandi hlutfall kennara kvenmenn.