IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/21407.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Teacher-Student Gender Matches: Random Assignment Evidence from South Korea

Author

Listed:
  • Jaegeum Lim
  • Jonathan Meer

Abstract

Gender disparities in academic performance may be driven in part by the interaction of teacher and student gender, but systematic sorting of students into classrooms makes it difficult to identify causal effects. We use the random assignment of students to Korean middle school classrooms and show that the female students perform substantially better on standardized tests when assigned to female teachers; there is little effect on male students.

Suggested Citation

  • Jaegeum Lim & Jonathan Meer, 2015. "The Impact of Teacher-Student Gender Matches: Random Assignment Evidence from South Korea," NBER Working Papers 21407, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:21407
    Note: ED LS
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w21407.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jackson, C. Kirabo, 2012. "Single-sex schools, student achievement, and course selection: Evidence from rule-based student assignments in Trinidad and Tobago," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 173-187.
    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. Soohyung Lee & Lesley J. Turner & Seokjin Woo & Kyunghee Kim, 2014. "All or Nothing? The Impact of School and Classroom Gender Composition on Effort and Academic Achievement," NBER Working Papers 20722, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Thomas S. Dee, 2007. "Teachers and the Gender Gaps in Student Achievement," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(3).
    5. Lavy, Victor & Sand, Edith, 2015. "On The Origins of Gender Human Capital Gaps: Short and Long Term Consequences of Teachers’ Stereotypical Biases," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1085, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    6. Magnus Carlsson & Gordon B. Dahl & Björn Öckert & Dan-Olof Rooth, 2015. "The Effect of Schooling on Cognitive Skills," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(3), pages 533-547, July.
    7. Hyunjoon Park & Jere Behrman & Jaesung Choi, 2013. "Causal Effects of Single-Sex Schools on College Entrance Exams and College Attendance: Random Assignment in Seoul High Schools," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 50(2), pages 447-469, April.
    8. 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.
    9. Kang, Changhui, 2007. "Classroom peer effects and academic achievement: Quasi-randomization evidence from South Korea," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 458-495, May.
    10. Holmlund, Helena & Sund, Krister, 2008. "Is the gender gap in school performance affected by the sex of the teacher," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 37-53, February.
    11. Cho, Insook, 2012. "The effect of teacher–student gender matching: Evidence from OECD countries," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 54-67.
    12. Paredes, Valentina, 2014. "A teacher like me or a student like me? Role model versus teacher bias effect," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 38-49.
    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. 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.
    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. Jaegeum Lim & Jonathan Meer, 2020. "Persistent Effects of Teacher–Student Gender Matches," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 55(3), pages 809-835.
    2. Dustmann, Christian & Ku, Hyejin & Kwak, Do Won, 2018. "Why Are Single-Sex Schools Successful?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 79-99.
    3. Puhani, Patrick A., 2018. "Do boys benefit from male teachers in elementary school? Evidence from administrative panel data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 340-354.
    4. 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.
    5. Hisanobu Kakizawa, 2017. "The Effects of Student-Teacher Gender Matching on Students f Performance in Junior High Schools in Japan," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 17-29, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    6. Eble, Alex & Hu, Feng, 2020. "Child beliefs, societal beliefs, and teacher-student identity match," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    7. Stephan Maurer & Guido Schwerdt & Simon Wiederhold, 2023. "Do Role Models Matter in Large Classes? New Evidence on Gender Match Effects in Higher Education," CESifo Working Paper Series 10208, CESifo.
    8. Brandts, Jordi & Rott, Christina, 2021. "Advice from women and men and selection into competition," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    9. Paredes, Valentina, 2014. "A teacher like me or a student like me? Role model versus teacher bias effect," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 38-49.
    10. Maurer, Stephan & Schwerdt, Guido & Wiederhold, Simon, 2024. "Understanding Gender Match Effects in Higher Education: The Role of Class Size," VfS Annual Conference 2024 (Berlin): Upcoming Labor Market Challenges 302339, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    11. David Card & Ciprian Domnisoru & Seth G. Sanders & Lowell Taylor & Victoria Udalova, 2022. "The Impact of Female Teachers on Female Students' Lifetime Well-Being," NBER Working Papers 30430, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Thomas Breda & Julien Grenet & Marion Monnet & Clémentine van Effenterre, 2023. "How Effective are Female Role Models in Steering Girls towards STEM? Evidence from French High Schools," PSE Working Papers halshs-01713068, HAL.
    13. 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.
    14. Shulamit Kahn & Donna Ginther, 2017. "Women and STEM," NBER Working Papers 23525, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Hani Mansour & Daniel I. Rees & Bryson M. Rintala & Nathan N. Wozny, 2022. "The Effects of Professor Gender on the Postgraduation Outcomes of Female Students," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 75(3), pages 693-715, May.
    16. Kato, Takao & Song, Yang, 2018. "An Advisor like Me: Does Gender Matter?," IZA Discussion Papers 11575, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. 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.
    18. 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.
    19. Goulas, Sofoklis & Gunawardena, Bhagya N. & Megalokonomou, Rigissa & Zenou, Yves, 2024. "Gender Role Models in Education," IZA Discussion Papers 17271, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    20. Do Won Kwak & Hyejin Ku, 2013. "Together or Separate: Disentangling the Effects of Single-Sex Schooling from the Effects of Single-Sex Schools," Discussion Papers Series 487, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I21 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Analysis of Education
    • I24 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Education and Inequality
    • J16 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Gender; Non-labor Discrimination

    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:nbr:nberwo:21407. 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/nberrus.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.