Prejudices in the classroom: Teachers underestimate girls in math and boys in languages. Primary school teachers use such prejudices to reinforce differences in performance, a new study shows.
The study, published in the journal Social Science Research, evaluated longitudinal studies and data from 17,000 children. In the area of language, girls’ abilities tend to be overestimated. In mathematics it’s exactly the opposite. “Our results are an indication of the existence of self-fulfilling prophecies,” says study director Melanie Olczyk.