natural and physical sciences, male faculty members tend to receive higher evaluation scores than
female faculty teaching cultural diversity classes.
Specifically, while female faculty members obtained a slightly higher average course rating
than males in the natural and physical sciences (3.04 v. 2.88 respectively), this difference was small
enough that it didn’t affect the overall grade average for both types of faculty which was a ‘B’.
Similarly, when examining the average instructor rating of faculty in the natural and physical
sciences, there was no significant difference between male and female faculty (both earned an
average of 3.02 = B).
However when we examine the average course rating and average instructor rating for
courses in the cultural diversity category, gender differences appear more salient. That is, female
faculty members averaged 2.9 (B) in the course rating compared with the average of 3.41 (B+) for
male faculty. In addition, while female faculty members averaged a 2.88 (also a ‘B’) in the
instructor rating, male faculty members averaged a 3.54 (A-). As such, faculty course evaluations
for female faculty tend to remain constant at approximately a ‘B’ average across disciplines and
course content while male faculty members tended to receive stronger evaluations from students in
cultural diversity courses. This suggests that the original hypothesis was partially confirmed; that is
a negative impact to women faculty in course evaluations but only in courses that are deliberately
raced and/or gendered.
So, how do we explain the differences in evaluations between female and male faculty in the
cultural diversity courses? One assumption drawn from previous literature is that female faculty are
frequently perceived as less authoritative, less academic and more biased then male faculty (Basow
1987; Kierstead, Angostino, and Dill 1988). Given this, we might assume that these perceptions
weigh more heavily against a faculty member in a course that is perceived as “less academic” or
“less objective” such as those which are deliberately raced and/or gendered. Given that cultural
diversity courses are courses in which the material presented is subjective to an extent (meaning that
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Convention