Does socially constructed identity impact schooling outcomes? A novel analysis in South Africa

• In Event: Catalysts for change or keepers of tradition? How school environments influence gender dynamics and impact education outcomes

Proposal

Disparities in educational achievement can be influenced by a combination of factors, including both access to opportunities and individual differences. However, the differences can also be determined by divisions and norms rooted in an individual’s social identity. Understanding whether identity matters for academic success, whether these effects extend to later life, and whether identity can be constructed and manipulated has important implications for fully understanding the economics of education. This paper leverages a novel natural experiment in which incoming high school students in South Africa are randomly assigned to be members of one of four groups, all of which share a common environment and common resources, to test whether identity can affect high-stakes student outcomes. This setting overcomes challenges to identification in applied work in identity economics: individual identities are often fixed over long periods of time or chosen endogenously. Using a dataset I collect from the yearbooks of a South African school and students' LinkedIn and Instagram profiles, I find robust causal evidence that social identity plays an important role in determining student outcomes, including grades on high-stakes senior year exams, sports participation, tertiary education, labor market and social outcomes. I use text analysis to investigate the traits and behaviors groups emphasize to shed light on which group prescriptions drive outcomes in certain directions.

Author

• Allegra Cockburn, Population Council