Names, expectations and the Black-White test score gap
By: David N. Figlio.
Contributors: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series -- no. 11195.; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research) -- working paper no. 11195.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 31
Subjects: Names, Personal -- Social aspects -- United States; Discrimination in education -- United States; Discrimination in education -- Florida; African Americans -- Education -- Social aspects
Description: "This paper investigates the question of whether teachers treat children differentially on the basis of factors other than observed ability, and whether this differential treatment in turn translates into differences in student outcomes. I suggest that teachers may use a child's name as a signal of unobserved parental contributions to that child's education, and expect less from children with names that "sound" like they were given by uneducated parents. These names, empirically, are given most frequently by blacks, but they are also given by white and Hispanic parents as well. I utilize a detailed dataset from a large Florida school district to directly test the hypothesis that teachers and school administrators expect less on average of children with names associated with low socio-economic status, and these diminished expectations in turn lead to reduced student cognitive performance. Comparing pairs of siblings, I find that teachers tend to treat children differently depending on their names, and that these same patterns apparently translate into large differences in test scores"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: "March 2005."

Includes bibliographical references (p. 25-26).

Also available in PDF from the NBER world wide web site (www.nber.org).