Principal investigator: Adriano Valladão Pires Ribeiro
Article title: WHO BELIEVES IN ME? THE EFFECT OF STUDENT–TEACHER DEMOGRAPHIC MATCH ON TEACHER EXPECTATIONS
Article authors: Seth Gershenson, Stephen B. Holt and Nicholas W. Papageorge
Location of the intervention: United States
Sample size: 16.810 teacher-student pairs
Main theme: Education
Type of Intervention: Demographic differences
Main Variable of Interest: Teachers' expectations
Evaluation method: Experimental Evaluation (RCT)
Policy Problem
Differences in educational levels based on income, race, and gender are a problem, especially when it means that the minority within these groups invests less in education than they should. One source of this asymmetry is teachers' expectations regarding their students' education, since teachers can directly influence students' decisions about whether or not to pursue further education.
Evaluation Context
On many occasions, the professor is one of the few adults with higher education that the student has contact with, playing a fundamental role in shaping their academic aspirations and affecting their performance. The perception that the professor has low expectations of the student can negatively affect their performance and discourage them from studying. Furthermore, these low expectations can influence the professor's own work, being reflected in poorer classes, assessments, and advice, which also results in lower student achievement. Therefore, low expectations from the professor regarding the student's academic potential are a problem, especially for minority groups, perpetuating educational inequality.
In this context, the process of forming teachers' expectations becomes important; that is, what biases of the teacher are responsible for attaching a particular prediction to a student? One factor that generates bias and can be explored is the difference in demographic characteristics between teachers and students, such as race and gender.
Intervention Details
The 2002 Longitudinal Study of Education (ELS) is a nationally representative survey in the United States of tenth-grade students (standard age 15–16). In the survey, math and reading teachers provided their expectations for each student's ultimate grade level. Information on the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of both students and teachers is also included. In total, the sample comprises 16.810 teacher-student pairs, meaning two observations per student.
Demographic differences between teachers and students can be divided into four mutually exclusive categories: (i) same race and same gender; (ii) different race, same gender; (iii) same race, different gender; or (iv) different race and gender. Same race and gender comprises 1/3 of the observations, same race and opposite sex another 1/3, and the last part is divided equally between the two remaining categories.
At first glance, differing predictions from two teachers about the highest level of education a student could achieve might seem random if they represented idiosyncratic opinions. Or even if that student had discrepant abilities in mathematics and reading. However, neither of these two reasons can explain the relationship between the difference in the demographic characteristics of teachers and students and their expectations, as the following evidence shows.
Teachers systematically have lower expectations regarding the highest possible education for Black students compared to white students. On average, expectations for female students are higher than for male students. Furthermore, because the majority of teachers are white, Black students are more likely to encounter teachers with racial differences. Finally, because women are overrepresented in teaching positions, female students are more likely to be taught by teachers of the same gender than male students.
Similarly, some patterns can be described for teachers. White and female teachers tend to be more optimistic about their students' educational future compared to Black and male teachers, respectively. Furthermore, Black teachers are more likely to teach students of the same race and students with lower academic performance. On the other hand, white teachers are 8 percentage points more likely to have completed higher education. Regarding gender, there is no significant difference among teachers.
Exclusive
The process of teacher expectation formation in the presented context is influenced by the teacher's characteristics, the demographic differences between teacher and student, and also the student's characteristics. The problem in obtaining the effect of demographic differences on expectations is not accounting for all these factors, especially when some student characteristics, such as their motivation and innate ability, are not observed. By not considering the unobserved factors, their effects would be partly attributed to demographic characteristics. However, information on the predictions of two different teachers for the same student allows us to correct this problem by comparing the variation in expectations between teachers with similar and different demographic characteristics for the same student. Therefore, a causal relationship is obtained between the demographic differences of teacher and student and the teachers' expectations.
Results
Teachers, on average, are more likely to assign lower educational expectations to students with other racial profiles. This result can be almost entirely reflected in the expectations of non-Black teachers, primarily white, regarding Black students. Specifically, non-Black teachers assign a 12 percentage point lower probability that Black students will complete at most high school compared to Black teachers. Further investigation shows that this prediction of completing at most high school is 5 percentage points lower for Black boys than for Black girls. Regarding gender differences, the expectation results between students and teachers were, on average, the same. However, a closer analysis reveals that mathematics teachers assign a higher chance to female students of completing at most high school.
Lessons in Public Policy
Since students' decisions to pursue higher education can be influenced by teachers, the expectations formed about them become relevant. This is especially true when these expectations are related to demographic differences between students and teachers. Two lessons can be learned from the study. First, teacher recruitment should be even more diverse and representative in order to reduce demographic differences. Second, the formation of teachers' expectations about students should be included in training programs so that bias in expectations can be reduced.
Reference
Gershenson, Seth; Holt, Stephen B.; Papageorge, Nicholas W. "Who Believes in Me? The Effect of Student–Teacher Demographic Match on Teacher Expectations." Economics of Education Review, vol. 52, p. 209-224, 2016.
