Panel Paper:
The Relationship between Race-Congruent Students and Teachers: Does Racial Discrimination Exist?
Saturday, November 10, 2018
Coolidge - Mezz Level (Marriott Wardman Park)
*Names in bold indicate Presenter
This paper explores the role of teacher race/ethnicity in the teacher-perceived relationship with early elementary school students. Employing a standard two-way fixed effects model, I discover a positive link between the racial/ethnic match and the teacher-student relationship. Specifically, minority students tend to have a closer and more positive relationship with their teachers than white students by 0.288 and 0.323 standard deviations when they are taught by a minority teacher. Adapted rank-based tests of discrimination fail to reject the null hypothesis of racial discrimination. In other words, the favorable teacher-reported relationship with students is not prompted by teachers favoring their own kind or discriminating against opposite-race students. I further show that minority students are driving these estimates by reacting positively when they have a minority teacher but adversely once assigned to a white teacher, which are consistent with the role model effect. Given the importance of the relationship between young children with nonparental adults in their early stages of life, these findings have crucial policy implications.
Full Paper:
- RacialMatchPaper_draft2.2.pdf (306.6KB)
