Leerkrachten Vinden Meisjes Taalvaardiger: (Voor)oordelen over de taalvaardigheid Nederlands van autochtone en allochtone jongens en meisjes in het Speciaal Basisonderwijs

In this paper, we investigated, for 90 Dutch L1 and L2 children in Special Education, whether differences in Dutch language proficiency could be found between boys and girls, and whether the outcomes are in line with the evaluations of the teachers about the proficiency of these boys and girls. From the different proficiency tests (on articulation, vocabulary, and morphological, syntactical and textual abilities) and the spontaneous speech analyses (on the same aspects of proficiency), no differences between boys and girls emerge. However, the teachers evaluate the girls, in particular the Dutch L1 girls, as significantly more proficient than they are according to the tests and spontaneous speech data, and they evaluate the boys, in particular the Dutch L2 boys, as significantly lower than they perform on the tests and spontaneous speech data. In the final section, some explanations are discussed why teachers think that girls are more proficient than boys.