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Gendered Teacher Feedback, Students' Math Performance and Enrollment Outcomes: A Text Mining Approach

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  • Pauline Charousset

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement - ENPC - École nationale des ponts et chaussées - IP Paris - Institut Polytechnique de Paris)

  • Marion Monnet

    (IREDU - Institut de Recherche sur l'Education : Sociologie et Economie de l'Education [Dijon] - UBE - Université Bourgogne Europe)

Abstract

This paper examines how students' gender shapes teachers' feedback and its effects on performance and enrollment. Analyzing written feedback from math teachers to over 600,000 French high school students across five years, we find teachers praise girls for effort and positive behavior, while similarly-performing boys are more often criticized for behavior and praised for intellectual ability. Leveraging quasi-random teacher assignment, we estimate that gendered feedback slightly improves math performance, particularly for girls, especially when effort is emphasized. However, such feedback has no measurable impact on students' higher education enrollment in the following year.

Suggested Citation

  • Pauline Charousset & Marion Monnet, 2025. "Gendered Teacher Feedback, Students' Math Performance and Enrollment Outcomes: A Text Mining Approach," Working Papers halshs-03733956, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03733956
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03733956v2
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Dagorn, Etienne & Moulin, Léonard, 2025. "Dropping out of university in response to the COVID-19 pandemic," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).

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