Teacher Personality and the Perceived Socioeconomic Gap in Student Outcomes

Giorgio Brunello, Clementina Crocè, Pamela Giustinelli and Lorenzo Rocco
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Clementina Crocè: University of Padova

No 17331, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: We randomly assign student profiles to teachers and elicit teachers' beliefs about the student's likelihood of success in alternative high school tracks. We document a large and statistically significant gradient in teachers' beliefs about students' high school prospects with respect to students' socioeconomic background (SEB), ceteris paribus. We find that this gradient varies with teacher's personality, a hard-to-observe and understudied teacher trait. Specifically, higher levels of teacher's extraversion and openness are associated with a steeper negative SEB gradient in teachers' beliefs about students' success prospects in an academic track. Conversely, more conscientious and agreeable teachers assign to low-SEB students, on average, a higher probability of success in a vocational track. We discuss some policy implications of our findings.

Keywords: choice of high school tracks; teachers' beliefs and personality; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I20 I24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2024-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-ure
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Published - published in: Economics Letters, 2025, 247, 112096

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Journal Article: Teacher personality and the perceived socioeconomic gap in student outcomes (2025)
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