Gender and student misbehavior: Evidence from implicit and explicit measures

We investigated teachers' implicit personality theories in two studies. A gender IAT showed that 98 preservice teachers implicitly associated male students with negative and female students with positive student behaviors. These associations were related to interventions for male students' misbehaviors. A vignette study administered to 30 experienced teachers revealed gender-specific assignments. Externalizing behavior was seen as male, and causes as well as teachers' responses to student misbehavior were less favorable for the male student in the vignette. Our results show teachers' contributions to the “boy crisis” and call for education programs to sensitize teachers to gender-specific biases.