Strengthening teachers in disadvantaged schools: Evidence from an intervention in Sweden’s poorest city districts

Caroline Hall, Martin Lundin (martin.lundin@ifau.uu.se) and Kristina Sibbmark (kristina.sibbmark@ifau.uu.se)
Additional contact information
Martin Lundin: IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, Postal: Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, P O Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden, https://www.ifau.se/sv/Om-IFAU/Medarbetare/Forskare-Utredare/Martin-Lundin/
Kristina Sibbmark: IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, Postal: Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy, P O Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden, https://www.ifau.se/sv/Om-IFAU/Medarbetare/Forskare-Utredare/Kristina-Sibbmark/

No 2018:26, Working Paper Series from IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy

Abstract: Children growing up in disadvantaged neighborhoods tend to perform significantly worse in school compared to children growing up under more favorable circumstances. We examine the impact of a three-year program (“Coaching for Teaching”) targeted at ten poorly performing lower secondary schools in Sweden’s most disadvantaged city districts. The aim of the intervention was to strengthen the teachers’ professional development, e.g. through coaching and further training, and thereby enhance student performance. We use a difference-in-differences design and rich register data to estimate effects on several educational outcomes. Our results show a large and statistically significant positive impact on student performance on standardized tests in English language. Estimates for test results in math are also positive and large, but not statistically significant; the same applies to GPA and admission to upper secondary school. For test scores in Swedish language there is no indication of improvement. An analysis of a survey of pupils supports the idea that the teaching as well as the classroom climate improved due to the intervention. Taken together, the program seems to have generated rather promising results in the short run.

Keywords: Education; disadvantaged schools; lower secondary school; social background; teachers; professional development; student performance; government policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I21 I24 I28 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2018-12-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ifau.se/globalassets/pdf/se/2018/wp201 ... vantaged-schools.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2018_026

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series from IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy IFAU, P O Box 513, SE-751 20 Uppsala, Sweden. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ali Ghooloo (ali.ghooloo@ifau.uu.se this e-mail address is bad, please contact repec@repec.org).