Are You My Mother? Students' Expectations of Teachers and Teaching as Related to Faculty Gender

A study focused on the ways in which students conceptualize college teachers as authority figures, and examined differences between the ways in which male and female teachers were perceived. The sample examined consisted of 269 college freshmen enrolled at a private liberal arts college in either remedial freshman composition (94 students) or in general freshman composition (173 students). A questionnaire was developed to survey students' attitudes towards instructors with whom they had had minimal experience. Results suggest that there have been few changes in gender-based expectations of teachers in the last 10 to 15 years. The present study, however, does offer new insight into how students apply gender expectations. Although female instructors were more likely to be judged as possessing stereotypically feminine traits, male instructors were not accordingly judged as possessing stereotypical male traits. The present study suggests that female instructors are more likely to be judged as "types," while male instructors are more likely to be judged as individuals. These findings may explain why it is that female instructors have been judged more harshly for failing to comply with gender stereotypes than have male instructors. (Contains 30 references.) (Author/TB)