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This paper analyzes whether teachers' attention to boys and girls differs in low-performing schools in Chile, where large gender gaps in test scores are also observed. We coded 237 videotaped classes of fourth graders, identifying specific behaviors of teachers toward boys and girls. The results show a general imbalance in teachers' attention and interactions favoring boys. Gender attention gap is correlated with lower scores in math for girls on Chile's national standardized test (SIMCE). The gender attention gap was also greater in general in classrooms in which teachers had overall worse interactions with students, as measured by the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). The evidence in this paper contributes to the discussion about whether traditional measures of teacher-student interactions really capture all that matters for learning.

work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC-IGO BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/ legalcode) and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose, as provided below. No derivative work is allowed.Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC-IGO license.Following a peer review process, and with previous written consent by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a revised version of this work may also be reproduced in any academic journal, including those indexed by the American Economic Association's EconLit, provided that the IDB is credited and that the author(s) receive no income from the publication. Therefore, the restriction to receive income from such publication shall only extend to the publication's author(s). With regard to such restriction, in case of any inconsistency between the Creative Commons IGO 3.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license and these statements, the latter shall prevail.Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license.The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Inter-American Development Bank, its Board of Directors, or the countries they represent. To carry out the analyses, the authors used videotaped classes for fourth graders and coded 237 tapings. Results show a general (although not uniform) bias in teachers' actions that resulted in less attention to female students. Gender bias had an even greater effect in classrooms where the teachers had worse interactions with students. Results show that less effective teachers (according to the Classroom Assessment Scoring System, or CLASS) show a larger gender bias. Greater gender bias is also correlated with lower scores for girls in Chile's standardized test (Sistema de Medición de la Calidad de la Educación, or SIMCE). With a few exceptions, the measures of gender bias in teacher-student interaction do not show statistically significant correlations with the test scores of boys.JEL Codes: O12, J16, I2 Keywords: gender bias, gender gap, teacher quality, student learning * Rae Lesser Blumberg is a William R. Kenan, junior professor of sociology at the University of Virginia. Marina Bassi is advisor to the Vice-President for Sectors and Knowledge at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Mercedes Mateo Díaz is education specialist at the IDB. We are grateful for the assistance and guidance of many people. Gloria Burgoa, Olivia Feldman, Daniel Alonso and Ana Reynoso provided outstanding assistance for the literature review and analysis of the data. At the Universi...

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for helpful comments and suggestions. We would also like to recognize the support of the Ministry of Education of Chile (Division of General Education and Studies Department) in the different stages of this project. Costas Meghir benefited from funding by the Cowles foundation and the ISPS. Ana Reynoso was funded by the IADB. All errors and opinions are our own. The findings and conclusions expressed in this report are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the view of the IDB, its Executive Directors, the countries they represent, or the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.