IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lsu/lsuwpp/2018-06.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Relationship between Race-Congruent Students and Teachers: Does Racial Discrimination Exist?

Author

Abstract

This paper explores the role of teacher race/ethnicity in the teacher-perceived relationship with early elementary school students. Employing a model with both student and teacher Fixed effects, I discover a positive link between the racial/ethnic match and the teacher-reported relationship with students. Specifically, minority students tend to have a closer and more positive relationship with their teachers than white students when they are taught by a minority teacher. Adapted rank-based tests of discrimination reveal that the favorable teacher-reported relationship with students is not prompted by teachers favoring their own kind or discriminating against opposite-race students. I show that these estimates are driven by minority students reacting positively when they have a minority teacher but adversely once assigned to a white teacher, which is consistent with the role model effect. Given the importance of the relationship between young children with non-parental adults in their early stages of life, these findings have crucial policy implications.

Suggested Citation

  • My Nguyen, 2018. "The Relationship between Race-Congruent Students and Teachers: Does Racial Discrimination Exist?," Departmental Working Papers 2018-06, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.
    • Handle: RePEc:lsu:lsuwpp:2018-06
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.lsu.edu/business/economics/files/workingpapers/pap18_06.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Briggs Depew & Ozkan Eren & Naci Mocan, 2017. "Judges, Juveniles, and In-Group Bias," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(2), pages 209-239.
    2. Scott E. Carrell & Marianne E. Page & James E. West, 2010. "Sex and Science: How Professor Gender Perpetuates the Gender Gap," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(3), pages 1101-1144.
    3. Shamena Anwar & Hanming Fang, 2006. "An Alternative Test of Racial Prejudice in Motor Vehicle Searches: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 127-151, March.
    4. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Nathaniel Hilger & Emmanuel Saez & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach & Danny Yagan, 2011. "How Does Your Kindergarten Classroom Affect Your Earnings? Evidence from Project Star," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(4), pages 1593-1660.
    5. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2014. "Measuring the Impacts of Teachers I: Evaluating Bias in Teacher Value-Added Estimates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2593-2632, September.
    6. Raj Chetty & John N. Friedman & Jonah E. Rockoff, 2014. "Measuring the Impacts of Teachers II: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(9), pages 2633-2679, September.
    7. Duflo, Esther & Glennerster, Rachel & Kremer, Michael, 2008. "Using Randomization in Development Economics Research: A Toolkit," Handbook of Development Economics, in: T. Paul Schultz & John A. Strauss (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 61, pages 3895-3962, Elsevier.
    8. 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.
    9. Thomas S. Dee, 2007. "Teachers and the Gender Gaps in Student Achievement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(3).
    10. Jeffrey R Kling & Jeffrey B Liebman & Lawrence F Katz, 2007. "Experimental Analysis of Neighborhood Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(1), pages 83-119, January.
    11. Robert W. Fairlie & Florian Hoffmann & Philip Oreopoulos, 2014. "A Community College Instructor Like Me: Race and Ethnicity Interactions in the Classroom," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2567-2591, August.
    12. Helen Bernhard & Urs Fischbacher & Ernst Fehr, 2006. "Parochial altruism in humans," Nature, Nature, vol. 442(7105), pages 912-915, August.
    13. Florian Hoffmann & Philip Oreopoulos, 2009. "A Professor Like Me: The Influence of Instructor Gender on College Achievement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(2).
    14. Lusher, Lester & Campbell, Doug & Carrell, Scott, 2018. "TAs like me: Racial interactions between graduate teaching assistants and undergraduates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 203-224.
    15. 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.
    16. Eric P. Bettinger & Bridget Terry Long, 2005. "Do Faculty Serve as Role Models? The Impact of Instructor Gender on Female Students," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(2), pages 152-157, May.
    17. Hoffman, Florian & Oreopoulos, Philip, 2009. "A Professor Like Me: Influence of Professor Gender on University Achievement," CLSSRN working papers clsrn_admin-2009-13, Vancouver School of Economics, revised 02 Feb 2009.
    18. Heather Antecol & Ozkan Eren & Serkan Ozbeklik, 2015. "The Effect of Teacher Gender on Student Achievement in Primary School," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 63-89.
    19. Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Levitt, 2006. "The Black-White Test Score Gap Through Third Grade," American Law and Economics Review, American Law and Economics Association, vol. 8(2), pages 249-281.
    20. Jie Gong & Yi Lu & Hong Song, 2018. "The Effect of Teacher Gender on Students’ Academic and Noncognitive Outcomes," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36(3), pages 743-778.
    21. Egalite, Anna J. & Kisida, Brian & Winters, Marcus A., 2015. "Representation in the classroom: The effect of own-race teachers on student achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 44-52.
    22. Yan Chen & Sherry Xin Li, 2009. "Group Identity and Social Preferences," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 431-457, March.
    23. Peter Arcidiacono & Esteban Aucejo & Ken Spenner, 2012. "What happens after enrollment? An analysis of the time path of racial differences in GPA and major choice," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 1(1), pages 1-24, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Le, Kien & Nguyen, My, 2020. "The Impacts of Temperature Shocks on Birth Weight in Vietnam," MPRA Paper 110325, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. My Nguyen & Kien Le, 2023. "Racial/ethnic match and student–teacher relationships," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 393-412, April.
    2. Eble, Alex & Hu, Feng, 2020. "Child beliefs, societal beliefs, and teacher-student identity match," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    3. Seth Gershenson & Cassandra M. D. Hart & Joshua Hyman & Constance A. Lindsay & Nicholas W. Papageorge, 2022. "The Long-Run Impacts of Same-Race Teachers," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 300-342, November.
    4. Oliver, Daniel & Fairlie, Robert & Millhauser, Glenn & Roland, Randa, 2021. "Minority student and teaching assistant interactions in STEM," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    5. Chris Birdsall & Seth Gershenson & Raymond Zuniga, 2020. "The Effects of Demographic Mismatch in an Elite Professional School Setting," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 15(3), pages 457-486, Summer.
    6. Lisa Sofie Höckel, 2024. "Language lesson learned—foreign-origin teachers and their effect on students’ language skills," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 1-32, June.
    7. Takao Kato & Yang Song, 2022. "Advising, gender, and performance: Evidence from a university with exogenous adviser–student gender match," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(1), pages 121-141, January.
    8. Ellis, Jimmy R. & Gershenson, Seth, 2016. "LATE for the Meeting: Gender, Peer Advising, and College Success," IZA Discussion Papers 9956, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Lusher, Lester & Campbell, Doug & Carrell, Scott, 2018. "TAs like me: Racial interactions between graduate teaching assistants and undergraduates," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 203-224.
    10. Gershenson, Seth & Holt, Stephen B. & Papageorge, Nicholas W., 2015. "Who Believes in Me? The Effect of Student-Teacher Demographic Match on Teacher Expectations," IZA Discussion Papers 9202, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    11. Eren, Ozkan, 2023. "Potential in-group bias at work: Evidence from performance evaluations," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 206(C), pages 296-312.
    12. Höckel, Lisa, 2019. "Speaking the same language - The effect of foreign origin teachers on students’ language skills," VfS Annual Conference 2019 (Leipzig): 30 Years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall - Democracy and Market Economy 203638, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    13. 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).
    14. 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.
    15. Bohdana Kurylo, 2021. "The Impact of Same-Race Teachers on Student Behavioral Outcomes," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp695, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    16. Gørtz, Mette & Johansen, Eva Rye & Simonsen, Marianne, 2018. "Academic achievement and the gender composition of preschool staff," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 241-258.
    17. Delhommer, Scott, 2022. "High school role models and minority college achievement," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    18. Kato, Takao & Song, Yang, 2018. "An Advisor like Me: Does Gender Matter?," IZA Discussion Papers 11575, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Hill, Andrew J. & Jones, Daniel B., 2018. "A teacher who knows me: The academic benefits of repeat student-teacher matches," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-12.
    20. Brandts, Jordi & Rott, Christina, 2021. "Advice from women and men and selection into competition," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy

    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:lsu:lsuwpp:2018-06. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/delsuus.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.