Racial Discrimination in Grading: Evidence from Brazil

Fernando Botelho () and Marcos A. Rangel Ricardo Madeira

No 2015_04, Working Papers, Department of Economics from University of São Paulo (FEA-USP)

Abstract: We investigate whether racial discrimination taking the form of the biased assessment of students is prevalent within Brazilian schools. Robust evidence is drawn from unique data pertaining to middle-school students and educators. After holding constant performance in blindly scored tests of proficiency and behavioral traits, we find that teacher-assigned Mathematics grades suffer from cardinal and ordinal biases. We unveil strong indications that these effects result from incomplete information issues highlighted in models of statistical discrimination which are made particularly salient by social promotion schemes currently operational in our context.

Keywords: race; schooling; grading; standardized tests; statistical discrimination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I24 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-03-17
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lma and nep-ure
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

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