Representation in Brazilian classrooms: racial matching between students and teachers and school performance

Samuel de Albuquerque Rocha, Isabel Pessoa de Arruda Raposo, Sónia Maria Fonseca Pereira Oliveira Gomes and Diego Firmino Costa da Silva

Education Economics, 2025, vol. 33, issue 5, 775-793

Abstract: This study aims to analyze the impact of racial matching between teacher and student on the academic performance of middle school students in Brazil. The data comes from an educational evaluation survey carried out by the Joaquim Nabuco Foundation – Ministry of Education of Brazil (FUNDAJ 2020), which followed the same cohort of students in the sixth and seventh years of public middle schools, between the years of 2017 and 2018. To address to the potential source of endogeneity, we use FUNDAJ panel data to estimate student fixed effects models, which makes it possible to compare students who have one race-matched and one non-race-matched teacher within the same subject in the two years of data. The results show that, when placed in a situation of racial equality with their Portuguese and Mathematics teachers, Black students will present better grades in both subjects, by about 30% of their average grade. The results also show evidence of heterogeneity, with stronger effects in female students.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/09645292.2024.2404226

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