1. Teachers can influence girls to conform to stereotypes that they are not supposed to be “good” at math
Elementary school teachers commonly express anxiety around teaching math. Teachers subconsciously project this anxiety while teaching and, when the teachers are female, young girls are likely to internalize beliefs that females are not supposed to be “good” at math.
Girls and boys can have the same level of math achievement at the beginning of a year but, after learning from a “math-anxious” teacher, girls are more likely to have lower math scores than the boys by the end of the year.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2010):