IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ems/euriss/114926.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Teacher discrimination in occupational expectations and grading

Author

Listed:
  • Parashari, S.

Abstract

This paper studies the extent of teacher’s discrimination in occupational expectations and analyses whether discrimination in occupational expectations would further perpetuate discrimination in grading on the basis of student’s caste and socio-economic status. The paper adopts an experimental approach and draws on data generated from 122 teachers from 19 schools in Delhi, India. Student’s caste and socio-economic status were randomly assigned to a set of essays written by students such that the assigned characteristics were not related to essay quality. The results show that teachers’ expect students belonging to low caste and low socio-economic status will be less likely to realize their occupational ambitions relative to students belonging to high caste and high socio-economic status. Consistent with this bias in expectations there is also a bias in grading which shows that low expectations of a teacher perpetuates discrimination in grades awarded. Essays assigned low caste and low socio-economic status characteristics are graded 3.64 points lower relative to essays assigned to high caste and high socio-economic status. Given the ultra-competitive nature of schooling in India and the importance of grades in determining access to higher education in India, a 3.64 point disadvantage is substantial. The estimates also show that there is a trade-off between caste and socio-economic status. Belonging to a high socio-economic status lowers the extent of discrimination faced by low caste students.

Suggested Citation

  • Parashari, S., 2019. "Teacher discrimination in occupational expectations and grading," ISS Working Papers - General Series 640, International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam (ISS), The Hague.
    • Handle: RePEc:ems:euriss:114926
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repub.eur.nl/pub/114926/WP640.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bertrand, Marianne & Hanna, Rema & Mullainathan, Sendhil, 2010. "Affirmative action in education: Evidence from engineering college admissions in India," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(1-2), pages 16-29, February.
    2. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September.
    3. Lavy, Victor, 2008. "Do gender stereotypes reduce girls' or boys' human capital outcomes? Evidence from a natural experiment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(10-11), pages 2083-2105, October.
    4. Rema N. Hanna & Leigh L. Linden, 2012. "Discrimination in Grading," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(4), pages 146-168, November.
    5. Munshi, K., 2017. "Caste and the Indian Economy," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1759, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    6. Thomas S. Dee, 2004. "Teachers, Race, and Student Achievement in a Randomized Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 195-210, February.
    7. Thomas S. Dee, 2005. "A Teacher Like Me: Does Race, Ethnicity, or Gender Matter?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 158-165, May.
    8. van Ewijk, Reyn, 2011. "Same work, lower grade? Student ethnicity and teachers' subjective assessments," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(5), pages 1045-1058, October.
    9. Ashwini Deshpande, 2000. "Does Caste Still Define Disparity? A Look at Inequality in Kerala, India," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 322-325, May.
    10. Coate, Stephen & Loury, Glenn C, 1993. "Will Affirmative-Action Policies Eliminate Negative Stereotypes?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1220-1240, December.
    11. Maresa Sprietsma, 2013. "Discrimination in grading: experimental evidence from primary school teachers," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 523-538, August.
    12. Karla Hoff & Priyanka Pandey, 2006. "Discrimination, Social Identity, and Durable Inequalities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 206-211, May.
    13. Lydia Mechtenberg, 2009. "Cheap Talk in the Classroom: How Biased Grading at School Explains Gender Differences in Achievements, Career Choices and Wages," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(4), pages 1431-1459.
    14. Banerjee, Abhijit & Bertrand, Marianne & Datta, Saugato & Mullainathan, Sendhil, 2009. "Labor market discrimination in Delhi: Evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 14-27, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Camille Terrier, 2014. "Giving a Little Help to Girls? Evidence on Grade Discrimination and its Effect on Students Achievement," Working Papers hal-01080834, HAL.
    2. Terrier, Camille, 2020. "Boys lag behind: How teachers’ gender biases affect student achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    3. Nathalie Greenan & Joseph Lanfranchi & Yannick L'Horty & Mathieu Narcy & Guillaume Pierne, 2018. "Do Competitive Examinations Promote Diversity in Civil Service?," Post-Print halshs-02156947, HAL.
    4. Seth Gershenson & Stephen B. Holt & Nicholas Papageorge, 2015. "Who Believes in Me? The Effect of Student-Teacher Demographic Match on Teacher Expectations," Upjohn Working Papers 15-231, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
    5. Zenou, Yves & Islam, Asad & Pakrashi, Debayan & Wang, Liang Choon, 2018. "Determining the Extent of Statistical Discrimination: Evidence from a field experiment in India," CEPR Discussion Papers 12955, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Pushkar Maitra & Ananta Neelim, 2024. "Discrimination in Developing Countries," Monash Economics Working Papers 2024-03, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    7. Holt, Stephen B. & Papageorge, Nicholas W., 2016. "Who believes in me? The effect of student–teacher demographic match on teacher expectationsAuthor-Name: Gershenson, Seth," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 209-224.
    8. Maresa Sprietsma, 2013. "Discrimination in grading: experimental evidence from primary school teachers," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 523-538, August.
    9. Andreas Leibbrandt & John A. List, 2018. "Do Equal Employment Opportunity Statements Backfire? Evidence From A Natural Field Experiment On Job-Entry Decisions," NBER Working Papers 25035, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Mosse, David, 2018. "Caste and development: Contemporary perspectives on a structure of discrimination and advantage," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 422-436.
    11. Vecci, Joseph & Zelinsky, Tomas, 2016. "Social Identity and Role Models," Working Papers in Economics 672, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    12. Bjorn Tyrefors Hinnerich & Erik H�glin & Magnus Johannesson, 2015. "Discrimination against students with foreign backgrounds: evidence from grading in Swedish public high schools," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(6), pages 660-676, December.
    13. Girard, Victoire, 2018. "Don’t Touch My Road. Evidence from India on Affirmative Action And Everyday Discrimination," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 1-13.
    14. Jens Ruhose, 2015. "Microeconometric Analyses on Economic Consequences of Selective Migration," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 61.
    15. Vecci, Joseph & Zelinsky, Tomas, 2019. "Behavioural challenges of minorities: Social identity and role models," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 14(7).
    16. Jansson, Joakim & Tyrefors, Björn, 2022. "Grading bias and the leaky pipeline in economics: Evidence from Stockholm University," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    17. Ankush Asri & Deepti Bhatia & Urs Fischbacher, 2022. "Caste and Unequal Access to Education: An Experimental Study," TWI Research Paper Series 127, Thurgauer Wirtschaftsinstitut, Universität Konstanz.
    18. Jean-Baptiste Vilain, 2018. "Three essays in applied economics [Trois essais en économie appliquée]," SciencePo Working papers Main tel-03419493, HAL.
    19. Bart H. H. Golsteyn & Cécile Magnée & Inge Wolf, 2024. "Did Migrant Children Benefit from a Delay in the Dutch Primary School Exit Test?," De Economist, Springer, vol. 172(3), pages 141-166, September.
    20. Naureen Karachiwalla, 2019. "A Teacher Unlike Me: Social Distance, Learning, and Intergenerational Mobility in Developing Countries," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(2), pages 225-271.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    teacher discrimination; grading; occupational expectations; caste; socioeconomic status; Delhi; India;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ems:euriss:114926. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: RePub The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask RePub to update the entry or send us the correct address (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/issssnl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.