Do Same-Sex Teachers Affect Test Scores and Job Preferences? A Super-Study and a Meta-Analysis on Role-Model Effects in Education

Previous studies provide contradicting evidence on same-sex role model effects in education. We resolve those contradictions with a meta-analysis and a super-study. Our meta-analysis summarizes 538 estimates, and our super-study provides new evidence from 90 countries and 3 million students. Both approaches show that role model effects on students’ performance are small: 0.030 SD in the meta-analysis and 0.015 SD in the super-study. Moving beyond test scores, our super-study documents larger role model effects of 0.063 SD on job preferences, which are concentrated in rich and gender-equal countries. Our results suggest that same-sex role models will not close performance gaps but may help reduce occupational segregation.