A Perfect Match? Pupils’ and teachers’ views of the impact of matching educators and learners by gender

Abstract

British government policy on teacher recruitment gives high priority to increasing the number of male teachers, particularly in primary schools. Theis focus stems from concern to challenge 'boys' underachievement': policy-makers believe that 'matching' teachers and pupils by gender will improve boys' engagement with school. yet there is little evidence to support such assumptions which, as this article notes, are predicated on out-dated theories of social learning. This article reports findings from a large-scale qualitative study which sought to investigate primary pupils' and teachers' views concerning 'gender match' of teacher and learner. It demionstrates that the substantial majority of pupils and teachers rejected the salience of gender in pupil-teacher relations and learning outcomes, prioritising instead the abilities of the individual teacher.