Janis Haswell

Gender Bias and Critique of Student Writing.

Abstract The main purpose of this empirical investigation into gender and writing instruction is to locate ways that the critique of readers may be affected by their foreknowledge of the student writers sex. Thirty-two teachers and 32 students evaluated and diagnosed two student essays, neither overtly marked as to the sex of the writer. Independent variables controlled for were sex of reader, sex of the interviewer who prompted response during the taped session, professional status of participant (student or teacher), and knowledge of authors biological sex by participant (prior knowledge or no prior knowledge). Statistical analysis found gender interacting with all these variables. Among other associations, readers spontaneously constructed the authors sex even when they had not been informed of it; they rated the essays lower when they knew the writer was of their own sex, as measured by holistic rating and percentage of positive critique; they showed an anti-male bias as measured by holistic rating, and an anti-feminine bias as measured by attribution of agency to the writing; and they tended to suppress gender, as measured by the amount of agency that they passivized or made neutral. In sum, the study found evidence for the active presence of gender effects, especially via polarized gender stereotypes, as students and teachers appraise student writing.