Compensating Discrimination: Behavioral Evidence from Danish School Registers

Abstract

We suggest that discriminatory practices may vary significantly across decision-makers, which allows for deeper insights into the mechanisms behind discrimination. We study this in the context of biased grading in schools. We develop a theory of teacher biases driven by heuristic beliefs stemming from concrete classroom experiences. Because teachers may also care about grade equality, such a mechanism can lead to either inequality-reinforcing or compensating biases in grading. Based on large-scale administrative data on Danish students, we find strong evidence for highly heterogeneous teacher biases---up to 45\% of teachers exhibit a bias that is of the opposite sign as the average bias. Furthermore, there is a robust and substantively large compensation effect. Teachers that experienced a visible demographic group (defined by gender or migration background) academically under-performing relative to a reference group show more positive bias towards that group than teachers where the same group over-performed. We find little evidence for alternative explanations of bias. To fully grasp discrimination, we must go beyond averages and consider the wide variety of biases shaped by individual experiences.

Does chubby can get lower grades than skinny Sophie? Using an intersectional approach to uncover grading bias in German secondary schools

“…Existing research suggests grading bias against lower-class youth [ 17 , 24 – 31 ] and minority [ 12 , 13 , 25 , 28 , 30 – 38 ] as well as overweight or obese [ 17 , 39 – 42 ] pupils. Furthermore, there is also evidence for grading bias by gender, benefiting boys or girls depending on the subject [ 9 – 12 , 25 , 27 , 30 , 35 , 43 – 52 ]. The most plausible explanation for grading bias, for which there is supporting evidence, is that teachers’ evaluations of students’ abilities are affected by the stereotypical beliefs they hold about specific groups [ 29 , 37 , 53 ].…”

“…However, existing studies that do examine grading bias from an intersectional point of view often focus on the intersection of two characteristics (e.g. gender and ethnicity, gender and weight, or gender and social class; [ 17 , 31 , 52 ]). Therefore, the aim of our paper is to contribute both to the research on grading bias as well as to the literature on intersectionality in educational research by examining grading bias while simultaneously taking into account the four characteristics: gender, ethnic origin, class background, and weight status.…”

“…Numerous studies across various contexts and subjects (mostly mathematics and languages) have found that girls receive better grades than boys for the same standardised test performance (for Israel [ 43 ]; for Denmark [ 52 ]; for Spain [ 30 , 51 ]; for the US [ 10 , 25 ]; for Czechia [ 11 ]; for Germany [ 12 ]; for Italy [ 49 , 50 ]; for France [ 9 ]; for Switzerland [ 27 ]; for Greece [ 46 ]; for Portugal [ 47 ]; for New Zealand [ 35 ]). However, there are also studies that do not find such a bias (for Sweden [ 64 ]; for India [ 26 ]).…”

“…for Italy [ 13 , 28 ]; for Brazil [ 34 ]; for UK [ 32 ]; for Spain [ 30 , 31 ]; for the US [ 25 , 38 ]; for Germany [ 12 , 33 , 37 ]; for New Zealand [ 35 ]). However, there are also studies suggesting that—given the same standardised test scores—(some) ethnic minority students are even given more favourable grades than ethnic majority students (for Denmark [ 52 ]; for the UK [ 32 ]) or graded similarly (for Germany [ 17 , 65 ]; for Switzerland [ 27 ]).…”

“…Similarly, research on educational inequalities is increasingly taking intersectionality into account to do justice to the fact that depending on their unique combination of ascriptive characteristics, students can face cumulative (dis)advantage on multiple grounds [ 57 – 61 ]. However, to date, empirical research on grading bias taking intersectionality into consideration has been scarce, which is why we aim to contribute to this line of research [ 17 , 31 , 52 ]. More broadly however, it has e.g.…”