Disaffection in the mathematics class is shown to be a good predictor of dropout intentions and to have a considerable impact on enrolment decisions taken before entering tertiary education. We explore a database containing information from 2,200 high school students in Catalonia enrolled at 91 schools. Apart from obvious effects, such as personality traits, pupils’ gender and satisfaction with their current teacher in that subject, we provide evidence in the form of higher satisfaction scores that students prefer female maths teachers. This finding is robust to the inclusion of school fixed effects, pupils’ features, household characteristics and other teacher characteristics. Although the teacher gender effect is more relevant for girls, it is also apparent among boys.

Key words: disaffection, mathematics, teacher’s gender.
JEL classification: I20.