Who Believes in Me? The Effect of Student-Teacher Demographic Match on Teacher Expectations

Seth Gershenson, Stephen Holt and Nicholas Papageorge

No 9202, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Teachers are an important source of information for traditionally disadvantaged students. However, little is known about how teachers form expectations and whether their expectations are systematically biased. We investigate whether student-teacher demographic mismatch affects high school teachers' expectations for students' educational attainment. Using a student fixed effects strategy that exploits expectations data from two teachers per student, we find that non-black teachers of black students have significantly lower expectations than do black teachers. These effects are larger for black male students and math teachers. Our findings add to a growing literature on the role of limited information in perpetuating educational attainment gaps.

Keywords: educational attainment; expectations; stigmatization; mismatch (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D84 I24 J15 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2015-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-lab and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published in: Economics of Education Review, 2016, 52, 209-224

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Working Paper: Who Believes in Me? The Effect of Student-Teacher Demographic Match on Teacher Expectations (2015)
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