Pre-service elementary school teachers' expectations about student performance: How their beliefs are affected by their mathematics anxiety and student's gender

•Math anxiety can influence pre-service teachers' expectations about students.•Pre-service teachers' expectations about math achievement are gender biased.•Underachievement in math is extrapolated to general achievement only for girls.•No interaction effects were found between math anxiety and math gender bias.•Math anxiety may affects teachers' capacity to develop inclusive learning classrooms.

We examine whether the expectations of pre-service elementary school teachers about students' achievement, and their beliefs regarding student need for academic support, are influenced by future teachers' mathematics anxiety or by student gender and socioeconomic status. We found that mathematics anxiety can negatively influence pre-service teachers' expectations about students, and that future mathematics teachers' expectations of mathematics achievement are lower for girls than for boys. These effects are independent, as we did not find significant interaction effects between pre-service teacher's mathematics anxiety and student gender. Our results also suggest that mathematics anxiety could affect the capacity of pre-service teachers to develop inclusive learning environments in their classrooms.