IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp17751.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Seeing Stereotypes

Author

Listed:
  • Baldazzi, Elisa

    (University of Bologna)

  • Biroli, Pietro

    (University of Bologna)

  • Della Giusta, Marina

    (University of Turin)

  • Dubois, Florent

    (University of Torino)

Abstract

Reliance on stereotypes is a persistent feature of human decision-making and has been extensively documented in educational setting, where it can shape students' confidence, performance, and long-term human capital accumulation. While effective techniques exist to mitigate these negative effects, a crucial first step is to establish whether teachers can recognize stereotypes in their environment. We introduce the Stereotype Identification Test (SIT), a novel survey tool that asks teachers to evaluate and comment on the presence of stereotypes in images randomly drawn from school textbooks. Their responses are systematically linked to established measures of implicit bias (Implicit Association Test, IAT) and explicit bias (survey scales on teaching stereotypes and social values). Our findings demonstrate that the SIT is a valid and reliable measure of stereotype recognition. Teachers' ability to recognize stereotypes is linked to trainable traits such as implicit bias awareness and inclusive teaching practices. Moreover, providing personalized feedback on implicit bias improves SIT scores by 0.25 standard deviations, reinforcing the idea that stereotype recognition is malleable and can be enhanced through targeted interventions.

Suggested Citation

  • Baldazzi, Elisa & Biroli, Pietro & Della Giusta, Marina & Dubois, Florent, 2025. "Seeing Stereotypes," IZA Discussion Papers 17751, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
  • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17751
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp17751.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Arnold & Will Dobbie & Crystal S Yang, 2018. "Racial Bias in Bail Decisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1885-1932.
    2. Anjali Adukia & Alex Eble & Emileigh Harrison & Hakizumwami Birali Runesha & Teodora Szasz, 2023. "What We Teach About Race and Gender: Representation in Images and Text of Children’s Books," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 138(4), pages 2225-2285.
    3. Alberto Alesina & Michela Carlana & Eliana La Ferrara & Paolo Pinotti, 2024. "Revealing Stereotypes: Evidence from Immigrants in Schools," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(7), pages 1916-1948, July.
    4. Will Dobbie & Andres Liberman & Daniel Paravisini & Vikram Pathania, 2021. "Measuring Bias in Consumer Lending [Loan Prospecting and the Loss of Soft Information]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(6), pages 2799-2832.
    5. Marcella Alsan & Owen Garrick & Grant Graziani, 2019. "Does Diversity Matter for Health? Experimental Evidence from Oakland," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(12), pages 4071-4111, December.
    6. Michael Ewens & Bryan Tomlin & Liang Choon Wang, 2014. "Statistical Discrimination or Prejudice? A Large Sample Field Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(1), pages 119-134, March.
    7. Deborah A. Cobb‐Clark & Stefanie Schurer, 2013. "Two Economists' Musings on the Stability of Locus of Control," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 358-400, August.
    8. Ayres, Ian & Siegelman, Peter, 1995. "Race and Gender Discrimination in Bargaining for a New Car," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 304-321, June.
    9. Michela Carlana & Eliana La Ferrara & Paolo Pinotti, 2022. "Reply to: Comments on “Goals and Gaps: Educational Careers of Immigrant Children”," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(1), pages 43-46, January.
    10. Michela Carlana & Eliana La Ferrara & Paolo Pinotti, 2022. "Goals and Gaps: Educational Careers of Immigrant Children," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(1), pages 1-29, January.
    11. 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.
    12. Balsa, Ana I. & McGuire, Thomas G., 2001. "Statistical discrimination in health care," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(6), pages 881-907, November.
    13. Jennifer L. Doleac & Luke C.D. Stein, 2013. "The Visible Hand: Race and Online Market Outcomes," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 123(11), pages 469-492, November.
    14. Michela Carlana, 2019. "Implicit Stereotypes: Evidence from Teachers’ Gender Bias," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(3), pages 1163-1224.
    15. Susan Embretson (Whitely), 1984. "A general latent trait model for response processes," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 49(2), pages 175-186, June.
    16. 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.
    17. Benjamin Edelman & Michael Luca & Dan Svirsky, 2017. "Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy: Evidence from a Field Experiment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 1-22, April.
    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. Elisa Baldazzi & Pietro Biroli & Marina Della Giusta & Florent Dubois, 2025. "Seeing Stereotypes," Papers 2503.02146, arXiv.org.
    2. Elisa Baldazzi & Pietro Biroli & Marina Della Giusta & Florent Dubois, 2025. "Seeing Stereotypes," CESifo Working Paper Series 11730, CESifo.
    3. Halla, Martin & Kah, Christopher & Sausgruber, Rupert, 2021. "Testing for Ethnic Discrimination in Outpatient Health Care: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Germany," Department of Economics Working Paper Series 319, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    4. Gaddis, S. Michael, 2018. "An Introduction to Audit Studies in the Social Sciences," SocArXiv e5hfc, Center for Open Science.
    5. Della Giusta, Marina & Bosworth, Steven J., 2020. "Bias and Discrimination: What Do We Know?," IZA Discussion Papers 13983, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. J. Michelle Brock & Ralph De Haas, 2023. "Discriminatory Lending: Evidence from Bankers in the Lab," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 31-68, April.
    7. Kai Barron & Ruth Ditlmann & Stefan Gehrig & Sebastian Schweighofer-Kodritsch, 2025. "Explicit and Implicit Belief-Based Gender Discrimination: A Hiring Experiment," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 71(2), pages 1600-1622, February.
    8. Siddique, Abu & Vlassopoulos, Michael & Zenou, Yves, 2023. "Market competition and discrimination," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    9. Gaddis, S. Michael, 2018. "An Introduction to Audit Studies in the Social Sciences," SocArXiv e5hfc_v1, Center for Open Science.
    10. Tjaden, Jasper Dag & Schwemmer, Carsten & Khadjavi, Menusch, 2018. "Ride with Me - Ethnic Discrimination, Social Markets and the Sharing Economy," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 418-432.
    11. Lepinteur, Anthony & Menta, Giorgia & Waltl, Sofie R., 2025. "Equal price for equal place? Demand-driven racial discrimination in the housing market," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    12. Andrew Hanson & Zackary Hawley, 2023. "Restricted access: Real estate agent response to client race, ethnicity, gender, and side of market," Real Estate Economics, American Real Estate and Urban Economics Association, vol. 51(4), pages 855-890, July.
    13. Michael Ewens & Bryan Tomlin & Liang Choon Wang, 2014. "Statistical Discrimination or Prejudice? A Large Sample Field Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(1), pages 119-134, March.
    14. Sahlström, Ellen & Silliman, Mikko, 2024. "The Extent and Consequences of Teacher Biases against Immigrants," IZA Discussion Papers 16899, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Tjaden, Jasper Dag & Schwemmer, Carsten & Khadjavi, Menusch, 2017. "Ride with me: Ethnic discrimination in social markets," Kiel Working Papers 2087, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    16. Sevilla, Almudena, 2020. "Gender Economics: An Assessment," IZA Discussion Papers 13877, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Ruomeng Cui & Jun Li & Dennis J. Zhang, 2020. "Reducing Discrimination with Reviews in the Sharing Economy: Evidence from Field Experiments on Airbnb," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(3), pages 1071-1094, March.
    18. Priyanga Gunarathne & Huaxia Rui & Abraham Seidmann, 2022. "Racial Bias in Customer Service: Evidence from Twitter," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(1), pages 43-54, March.
    19. Hinnerich, Björn Tyrefors & Höglin, Erik & Johannesson, Magnus, 2011. "Are boys discriminated in Swedish high schools?," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 682-690, August.
    20. Kakar, Venoo & Voelz, Joel & Wu, Julia & Franco, Julisa, 2018. "The Visible Host: Does race guide Airbnb rental rates in San Francisco?," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 25-40.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    inequality; stereotypes; discrimination; education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity

    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:iza:izadps:dp17751. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.