Gender stereotypes: The case of MisProfesores.com in Mexico

Eva Arceo-Gomez and Raymundo Campos-Vazquez

Economics of Education Review, 2019, vol. 72, issue C, 55-65

Abstract: In this study we analyze the extent of gender stereotypes in student evaluations of college professors on the internet site MisProfesores.com in Mexico. We downloaded more than 600,000 evaluations for the period 2008–18. The evaluations include three scores on a scale of 0 to 10: how easy it is to obtain a good grade, how much the professor helps his or her students obtain good grades, and how clearly the professor presents the concepts of the course. The site also allows students to comment on the professor and the class, and we performed a quantitative text analysis of these comments. We found that women receive lower scores than their male counterparts, although the difference is relatively small: 1–2% of a standard deviation. Students refer more to the appearance and personality of female professors, and describe them more often as “bad” or “strict.” They also refer to women in less respectful terms, calling them “maestra” (“teacher”), but calling men “profesor” or “licenciado” (the title corresponding to their academic degree), and they use less positive language for women (“good” vs. “great” or “excellent” for men). Finally, words associated with qualities of service (traditionally stereotyped as feminine) favor women more than men; whereas, words with traditionally masculine associations have a negative impact on women's evaluations.

Keywords: Gender; Stereotypes; Big data; Teaching evaluations; Mexico (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D82 D83 I20 J16 O54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272775719300743
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecoedu:v:72:y:2019:i:c:p:55-65

DOI: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.05.007

Access Statistics for this article

Economics of Education Review is currently edited by E. Cohn

More articles in Economics of Education Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().