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

• In Event: Roundtable Session 36
  In Roundtable Session: Matching in Educational Settings

Abstract

For high school students, teachers are an important source of information regarding student potential for educational attainment, particularly for traditionally disadvantaged students who may lack access to additional sources of information. Biases in teacher expectations about student potential can therefore lead students to make sub-optimal investments in human capital. However, little is known about how teachers form expectations of student potential. We investigate whether student-teacher demographic mismatch affects high school teachers’ expectations of students’ ultimate 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 for student educational attainment than do black teachers.

Authors

• Seth Gershenson, American University

• Steve Holt, American University

• Nicholas Papageorge, Johns Hopkins University