Stereotypical images of male and female mathematics teachers

Abstract

In this paper, we describe how pre-service teachers portray stereotypical mathematics teachers. Using longitudinal data – from 2007 to 2020 – of pre-service teachers’ drawings (N=767), we report on four clusters of stereotypical mathematics teachers. In all clusters, we find significant gender differences. Stereotypical teachers in two clusters share some physical, often unfavourable, appearances, and the stereotypical teachers in these clusters are primarily men. The remaining clusters show how pre-service teachers associate gender with mathematical content: Women teach simple arithmetic; men teach advanced algebra.