Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Race and Gender Dynamics in College Classrooms

(Education)

Persistent socio-demographic gaps in educational achievement and attainment are some of the most important educational problems in United States. These gaps not only are prominent in K-12 sectors but also persist into post-secondary institutions. The National Center for Education Statistics reports that racial gaps have narrowed in college enrollment, but not in college completion, in the past decade. A more modest disparity in achievement between male and female students is also a great policy concern, especially with respect to science and technology fields as well as in subject areas that lead to professional degrees. Existing research has yet to fully understand the determinants of race and gender achievement gaps. These gaps suggest a direction for future studies to explore dynamics within schools and classrooms, particularly in post-secondary educational settings. In this session, we present new evidence from four studies on race and gender dynamics in college classrooms. In particular, we provide causal evidence on three different university inputs that influence race and gender achievement gaps in post-secondary institutions: instructors, teaching assistants (TAs), and peers. The first two studies examine the role of instructor and student demographic match. Using data from an entire state college system, the first paper examines the impact of having a same-race instructor on students’ concurrent course performance, as well as the long-term impacts on subsequent course taking and grades, major choice, and labor market outcomes. The second paper utilizes data from a large, private, top-tier law school and provides the first evidence to date on demographic match between instructor and students in the law school context, and how this affects law school students’ academic performance and choice of concentration. The third paper focuses on the role of TAs using data from a large public university in California. It estimates the causal impact of TA-student racial interactions and the potential mechanisms through which racial interactions affect student’s course outcomes. The last paper examines classroom peer effects, namely the gender, race, and average ability composition during a student’s first course in a particular field of study in college, on a comprehensive set of student outcomes including current course performance, subsequent course enrollment and performance, and eventual major choice. Together, these studies contribute to the literature on race and gender achievement gaps by providing quasi-experimental evidence using data from different postsecondary institutional settings. Results from these studies will provide important policy implications for narrowing and eliminating race and gender achievement gaps. They also shed light on university teaching staff recruitment policy, class assignment and scheduling policy, and student admission policy.