A recent NBER working paper finds relatively small effects of gender matching between teacher and pupil on grades and retention. This relates to a previous discussion. Although, it should be said that this relates to college and it seems more intutive to me that such effects would be more likely to operate when gender differences become most pronounced post-puberty. It would be fascinating to see the results of such an exercise at different phases of the student life-cycle.
The paper does reference quite a few papers that find that teacher gender does not have a big effect at secondary school level either. The paper by Dee forthcoming in the Journal of Human Resources shows some of the biggest effects with female teachers being associated with markedly lower maths grades for secondary school boys. On balance, the evidence is by no means siding markedly in either direction; some papers show an effect, some dont. More evidence needed on this.
http://papers.nber.org/papers/w13182
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I've heard similar arguments before relating to teacher ethnicity and student performance which have indicated that matching is better. This is often supported by the idea that matching means an increased likelihood that the teacher will become a positive role-model for the child. I reckon that it is more likely that this effect is a result of teacher bias. Supporting this contention a brief search found the article "Teachers' Perceptions and Expectations and the Black-White Test Score Gap" which documents "evidence for the proposition that teachers' perceptions, expectations, and behaviors interact with students' beliefs, behaviors, and work habits in ways that help to perpetuate the Black-White test score gap". This may explain ethnicity effects and in a similar way gender effects and also it is probably more likely that a gender and colour-blind teacher or even better a teacher who considers the necessary aspects of both and who considers each childs specific needs may be more likely to become a role model irrespective of his/her gender or ethnicity.
It would be interesting to see the effect of the reversals in recent years of the sucess of males and females in various subjects on teacher beliefs, expectations etc and how these effect student performance.
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