Evaluation of gender influences on teaching effectiveness of secondary school teachers

Dr. Nasreena and Fatima Islahib Department of Education Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh - 202 002

ABSTRACT
Teacher quality matters. Nearly all observers of the education process including scholars, school administrators, policy makers and parents point to the teacher quality as the most significant determinant of academic success. There have been a fairly large number of researches in the last decade or so that have dealt with the status of women in academic settings. Studies have raised the issue whether female teachers acquire qualitatively and quantitatively different levels of effectiveness than males because of family and parental responsibilities. Stereotypic representations of females and macho culture of society makes the gender gap in effectiveness all the more vital correlate to be examined. It is believed that identifying how female and male teacher differ in terms of their effectiveness will give valuable insights to both policy makers and educators. In view of this context, the present study was undertaken to assess the influence of gender on teaching effectiveness. Following a brief introduction on the subject, the paper discusses demographic factors like marital status, region, medium of instruction, age and educational attainment of male and female teachers in relation to their teaching effectiveness. These issues have important implications to understand and evaluate teaching effectiveness especially in view of the fact that the sex ratio of school teachers has changed significantly as compared to the past. This paper emphasises on the fact that while apparently men and women teachers exhibit similar traits, research suggests that they may meet the challenges in different ways. Overall, male and female teachers exhibited insignificantly different teaching effectiveness however variations were noticed with respect to different demographic factors. The paper concludes by arguing that since the quality of education being delivered, generally, has been considered as a function of teachers degree of effectiveness, there is need for both a substantive and methodological focus on gender specific responsibilities and requirements, in order to take out maximum from male and female teachers to produce high degree of effectiveness in their teaching.
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