Test Scores, Subjective Assessment and Stereotyping of Ethnic Minorities

Simon Burgess and Ellen Greaves ()

The Centre for Market and Public Organisation from Department of Economics, University of Bristol, UK

Abstract: We assess whether ethnic minority pupils are subject to low teacher expectations. We exploit the English testing system of “quasi-blind” externally marked tests and “non-blind” internal assessment to compare differences in these assessment methods between White and ethnic minority pupils. We find evidence that some ethnic groups are systematically “under-assessed” relative to their White peers, while some are “over-assessed”. We propose a stereotype model in which a teacher’s local experience of an ethnic group affects assessment of current pupils; this is supported by the data.

Keywords: Subjective assessment; stereotypes; education; test score gaps; ethnic minorities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
Date: 2009-09

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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bri:cmpowp:09/221

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