Gender Stereotypes in the Classroom and Effects on Achievement

Sule Alan, Seda Ertac () and Ipek Mumcu
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Seda Ertac: Koc University
Ipek Mumcu: University of Essex

No 2017-063, Working Papers from Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group

Abstract: We study the effect of elementary school teachers' beliefs about gender roles on student achievement. We exploit a natural experiment where teachers are prevented from self-selecting into schools, and conditional on school, students are allocated to teachers randomly. We show that girls who are taught for longer than a year by teachers with traditional gender views have lower performance in objective math and verbal tests, and this effect is amplified with longer exposure to the same teacher. We find no effect on boys. We show that the effect is partly mediated by teachers transmitting traditional beliefs to girls.

Keywords: gender stereotypes; gender role beliefs; achievement; teaching practices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 J16 J24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-08
Note: IP
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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http://humcap.uchicago.edu/RePEc/hka/wpaper/Alan_E ... enderstereotypes.pdf First version, August, 2017 (application/pdf)

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