According to the article they don't "have the answer" at all - they have a couple of theories:
> The study's authors say it's possible that, in reading, teachers unconsciously reward students exhibiting traditionally female behaviour, such as quietness and neatness, which make teaching easier for the teachers. Another theory is that inflated grades in mathematics are a way of trying to encourage girls, who are often seen as weaker in this subject.
If your target is X = 0, and you think or you've been told that you act as if X = -2, then you act as if X = 2 and hope for the best.
To go back, someone commented that boys are consciously graded lower, to which I wrote that conscious bias is the only way to correct for previous unconscious bias. Now you talk about teachers not seeing persons in students and mistreatment. I lost track of what point you are making and how it relates to anything. Are you still commenting on TFA and grading bias or venting your beef with quality of teaching and education system as a whole? If the latter then by all means join the club
In a better system there would be no grades, but as long as we have a system centered around grades and discussing an article about gender bias in grading that's the topic. And within it it's bordering on deliberate, malevolent ignorance to say "oh no, boys are being mistreated by receiving slightly worse grades" without acknowledging that before that girls were discriminated against incomparably more strongly and while it's not ideal it would seem as if there are attempts to improve the system here.
The original argument was that there was an unconscious bias against girls before, and I posit that conscious bias is the only way to correct for unconscious bias, and sometimes conscious bias overcompensates without any ill intent (because humans are complicated and your unconscious bias against a person is not something you can measure with a stick, my wild guess is the "unconscious" part might have something to do with that). Someone tell me this is wrong, I am yet to see a single argument how.
Second, one of the guesses in the conclusions section of the paper explicitly states that it could all be simply the effect of teachers trying to use whatever they think is effective for the betterment of the students: they might think boys would be motivated to work harder if they are given lower grades while to girls failure is destructive and they need constant encouragement. Is the original intent good? Sure why not. Is this sexist though? Absolutely. Is withholding failure from girls only strengthens fear of failure in them, hurting them in the long run, while making boys more prepared for competitive environment outside the school system? Should this be more of concern than hurting boys by giving them slightly lower grades? I'd say so.
People who decide to get even by treating some people different are not good people who actually care about the people they're discriminating against. They have contempt for those people and want to see them suffer.
PS. I am yet to hear an argument as to how you correct an unconscious bias without introducing a conscious bias. You have presented none. Come back when you are done moving the goalposts and willing to stay on topic
Making this discussion about mistreatment and abuse is as appropriate as insisting on talking about sexual assault at the workplace in a discussion about gender salary discrepancy. Like sure, maybe you were traumatized by school experience, some of us were too, it's just not what the question is about.
You can be traumatized by school with perfectly even grades as easily as you can have the most fulfilling experience even if teacher marked you up or down slightly when grading (eg like in the paper encouraging you with lower or higher grades according to what motivates you), these are just orthogonal.
Which is a far more common outcome of "unconscious bias correction policies" than actual progress.
> She adds that although other European countries also grade girls more generously than boys, the reasons for this could differ from place to place and won't necessarily mirror those in Italy.