Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/236336 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 14305
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We investigate the effect of stereotypical beliefs of teachers on the learning outcomes of secondary school students in India. We measure teacher’s bias through an index capturing teacher’s subjective beliefs about the role of gender and other characteristics in academic performance. We tackle the potential endogeneity of teacher’s subjective beliefs by controlling for teacher fixed effects in a value-added model that includes lagged test scores of students. We find that a standard deviation increase in the biased attitude of the math teacher increases the female disadvantage in math performance by 0.07 standard deviation over an academic year. The effect is stronger among medium-performing students and in classes where the majority of students are boys. The negative effect of biased teachers is statistically insignificant for female teachers who also reduce gender gap among medium-performing students. Mediation analysis shows that biased teachers negatively affect girls’ attitude towards math as compared to boys.
Subjects: 
learning outcomes
value-added model
gender
teachers
stereotypes
India
JEL: 
I24
J16
J24
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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