Dear Christina,

It is a suprise to me as a developmental psychologist to hear from you that recent studies state that too a large number of female teachers around the world has a negative impact on male students' further psychological development.

"What is my opinion?" -- You ask.

I do not know of such studies and has the following to ask: Who performed such studies, men, women, both? Where were they performed? Who were the participants and their age? What type of ´suchological development was assessed, cognitive, moral, prosocial, emotional, and so forth?

As I said, it is highy surprising to me to know that female teachers around the world has a negative impact on male students' further psychological development.

I am not much convinced that that is the case. As we know, since a couple of years ago female teachers tend to be more numerous than male teachers. However, a robust finding in the educational field is the Flynn's effect, that is, a substantial increase in students' QI with a certain passage of time. This finding is inconsistent with he idea that female teachers around the world have a negative impact on male students' further psychological development. If cognitive development is the case, then it seems that female teachers around the world have a positive impact on male students' intellectual development.

There is also accumulated evidence that shows that authoritative teachers are better teachers than authoritarian teachers. The former are demanding in cognitive terms but warm in terms of social interaction; the latter are demanding in cognitive terms but cold in terms of affectivity. I know of no study that shows that female teachers are more authoritarian then their male counterparts. Carol Gilligan's work goes in the opposite direction because it shows that women are more oriented than men to an ethic of care and responsibility. Men, according to Gilligan, are more oriented to an ethic of justice than an ethic of care or helping needy others. Accordingly, it could be hypothesized that female teachers foster students' emotional development and male teachers forster sudents' moral development. Reviews of literature show that this is not the case.

Of course, we can imagine that female teachers have a negative impact on male students' psychological development because male students' share more their male teachers perspectives than their female teachers' voice and perspectives. As the process of teaching/learning is a complex phenomenon and results from many variables, any conclusion retated to it should be seen cautiously. As I see it, this is particularly applicabale to the finding you mention. A more comprehensive conclusion about this finding has to take into account, for example, the questions I raised at the beggining of my answer. In addition to this, we may wonder whether it has been found that male teachers have a positive or negative impact on both male students and female students.

This is a short answer to you question. Even so, I hope it gives some hints to you.

KInd regards,

Orando.

OK, so I'm glad you also find these studies strange and not serious, as I do. This is what the study basically says:

Most teachers in the U.S. are women. It's possible, ..., that female teachers are more likely to use teaching strategies and enforce classroom behavioral norms that may be appropriate for girls, but not for boys, who hit certain developmental milestones at different times. Some have argued that these norms, like expectations that students will sit still and work independently, can disadvantage boys.

You can check this https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/02/the-boys-at-the-back/ and this https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2018/07/teaching_force_is_mostly_female_bad_for_boys.html

However, a counterstudy of the Brown Center for Education Policy doesn't seem to confirm, saying that "it is not clear that the plethora of females in the teacher workforce is worrisome in most circumstances—more female teachers may even be preferred in math and science classrooms. Hence, we argue promoting gender diversity in the workforce does not warrant equal priority to that given racial and ethnic diversity." https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2018/07/10/how-gender-diversity-among-the-teacher-workforce-affects-student-learning/?utm_campaign=Brown%20Center%20on%20Education%20Policy&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=64679563

If it is not related with knowledge level, teaching skill and quality of teaching, then there should be no problem.

Thanks.

Dear Christina,

Thank you for the links. In fact, as Ashkan observes the studies are flawed and not rigorous. As a developmental psychologist, I think that the studies cannot be taken seriously. In addition, as you say, the studies are not consistent with each other. Unfortunately, we still live in a world full of prejudices against women. A couple of years ago things were still worse. Even so, there is still a long road to follow. The gender equality is proclaimed in many constituitions. Such an equality, however, is not taken into account everyday life.

Besr regards,

Orlando

Thanks everybody for their opinion, I'm glad we all agree as to the lack of seriousness of such studies. Hope for a better and equal world comes from our scientific community.

Best regards,

Christina