Stereotyping and ethnicity gaps in teacher assigned grades

Publication type

Journal Article

Authors

Publication date

June 1, 2024

Summary:

We explore the contribution of stereotyping to attainment gaps between pupils from different ethnic groups when grades are assigned by teachers. We exploit a change in assessment methods in England to compare grades based on teacher predictions to grades received through blindly marked examinations. When grades are assigned by teachers, ethnic minority pupils receive higher grades in maths and lower grades in English relative to White British pupils and compared to when grades are assigned through exams marked by external assessors. We use an extension of the Gelbach decomposition (Gelbach, 2016) to investigate whether the effects can be accounted for by differences in the levels of, or returns to, observed characteristics between years. Accounting for these differences partially reduces the grade gap changes in maths but roughly doubles the magnitude of the grade gap changes in English. Grade gap changes are also not driven by time trends or ceiling effects. We conclude that group-specific stereotyping is a convincing explanation of the results.

Published in

Labour Economics

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2024.102577

ISSN

9275371

Subjects

Notes

Open Access

Under a Creative Commons license

Online Early

#578253

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