A study has found out that the female college professors are more likely to get requests from students for an increase of marks or extended assignment deadlines than their male counterparts.
DETAILS OF THE STUDY
Researchers from Eastern Washington University in the US found that women in academia more often face added work demand.
They analysed data from a survey of 88 US professors and found that students make more standard work demands and requests for special favours to their female rather than male professors.
However, female professors also reported more acts of friendship from their students.
Another study involved 121 college students, and set out to find out if a certain type of student is more likely to ask favours from female professors.
THE FINDINGS
- Researchers found that a student’s view about women in authority or sexism did not play a role.
- Instead, students who believed that they were deserving of academic success, irrespective of their actual performance or the effort they put in, were particularly likely to ask a female professor for extra favours, and react negatively if those favours were denied.
- These effects were driven by entitled students’ greater expectations of getting special favours granted by a female professor than a male professor.
- The gendered expectations that men are more respected and authoritative make even entitled students unlikely to oppose their male professors’ decisions. They might even believe that it would be fruitless to oppose male professors and to keep on nagging, because they are not easily swayed. Thus, these students’ entitlement may only manifest when interacting with female professors.
