Teacher Gender and Student Achievement Evidence from gender

Teacher Gender and Student Achievement - Evidence from gender mixed co-teacher pairs WORK IN PROGRESS Louise Beuchert Aarhus University Tryg. Fonden’s Child Research Centre

THIS PAPER • Exploits eksperimental data combined with register and survey data about students and their teachers • Question 1: The relationship between same-gender teacher and student achivement – Shows that boys taught by a male teacher have sign. higher achievements – Gender inequality in education (Bertrand & Pan 2013; Goldin et al 2006) (OECD 2015) • Question 2: Implications for policy? - 70% of school employees are female (DK) Flexible policy: male co-teachers/aides Shows that boys seem to benefit when introducing a male co-teacher, compared to a female co-teacher, in female-taught classrooms.

OUTLINE • • • Data Empirical strategy: Student FE model Results: Teacher gender Introduce policy eksperiment with co-teachers Results: Co-teacher pairs Conclusion and future research

LITTERATURE • Data development: linking students and teachers – Student FE + Teacher FE – Revise importance of teacher characteristics (Ladd et al 2008; 2016) – Hanushek 1997; Goldhaber 2008; Ladd et al 2016 • Having a same-gender teacher seem to benefit students – Student FE models – Dee 2007; Ladd 2008; Cho 2012; Winters, Haight, Swaim and Pickering 2013 – Primary/middle school

DATA • Data from the Danish Co-teacher Experiment – – – See Andersen, Beuchert, Kjærgaard and Nielsen (2014) Large-scaled RCT 221 schools Representative sample of Danish public schools All 6 th grade classes (10, 199 students) (age 12) • Register each teacher in Danish and Math – – Personal identifiers: teachers, students, co-teachers Link each teacher and student (New in DK!) Link with register data and survey information Register data yearly, from before school start

EMPIRICAL STRATEGY • Do students who are taught by a same-gender teacher have higher academic performance? – Exploit within-student across-subject variation – Subject 1: Boy taught by Female teacher – Subject 2: Boy taught by Male teacher (i. e. same-gender) • Estimation sample: Identifying variation <- - MIXED

EMPIRICAL STRATEGY •

EMPIRICAL STRATEGY •

(i) The effect of a SAMEGENDER teacher does not depend on the subject taught • Think of this as –. . role model effects etc. work in the same way –. . the teacher applying same teaching strategies etc. • In paper: – – Teacher surveys, 85% response rate Teaching strategies across subjects/teacher gender

FIGURE 1. TEACHING PRACTICES IN DANISH AND MATH BY TEACHER GENDER

FIGURE 2. TEACHING BELIEFS IN DANISH AND MATH BY TEACHER GENDER

ii) Students are assigned teachers based on the same mechanisms across all subjects (within schools) • Think of this as. . – – Students are assigned to classrooms on the basis of their average ability/motivation, not subject-specific • Classes formed when enter grade 0, stays throughout grades 0 -9 • <2% move class during Potential threats: DK: Not • Tracking: low performing GIRLS assigned FEMALE teachers allowed • High ability BOY moved to MATH class taught by MALE • Parental bias towards teacher gender/subject (Grönqvist and Vlachos 2014) – Registerdata: Parents’ edu/empl. mesured before school start – OLS: Teacher char. on parents’ baggrund, interact w/subject – F-tests: jointly insignificant, not different across subjects

RESULTS: OUTCOME • Outcomes: grade 6 national test in reading and math • Danish national tests – Mandatory testing program in grades 2 to 8 – End of the year-test – Online and adaptive test system • Questions adapt to the students proficiency during the testsession • Advantage: No teacher-assessment (reduce teacher bias) – Standardized (mean 0, std 1)

RESULTS: THE EFFECT OF A SAME-GENDER TEACHER

RESULTS: THE EFFECT OF A SAME-GENDER TEACHER • The estimated effects are robust when including. . – Teacher FE – Teacher controls measured before students start school (e. g. HS GPA, credentials, experience, income, children) • Results in line with newest evidence from Student FE models - e. g. Dee 2007; Ladd 2008; Cho 2012; Winters, Haight, Swaim and Pickering 2013; Grönqvist and Vlachos 2014;

RESULTS: THE EFFECT OF A SAME-GENDER TEACHER • The effect of a same-gender teacher is larger among. . – Children of parents living apart in the year of birth – Firstborn children – Girls of low educated mothers

MECHANISMS AND POLICY • Boys seem to benefit academically when taught by a male teacher compared to a female teacher • Mechanisms / Channels – Role model effects /Stereotype threats (Hinnerich 2013; Beilock et al 2010; Antecol 2013; Lavy and Sand 2015) – Teacher bias • in grading (Lavy 2008; Mechtenberg 2009; Falch and Naper 2013; Rangvid 2014) • In ”behavior” in class (Bertrand Pan 2013; Cornwell et al 2013; Kristoffersen et al 2015) – Males just better teachers? (In paper: registerdata track in/outflow)

MECHANISMS AND POLICY • Policy – Female-dominated professions: Child care (94%); Schools 70%; after school program 75%; youth club 52% – Student-teacher gender interactions in the classroom • e. g. awareness of own teacher bias, teaching strategies etc. (OECD 2015) – Regulation of the teacher pool • e. g. teacher college enrollment, recruitment programs etc. • Change margin of inference?

CO-TEACHER POLICY • More flexible: Male co-teacher/aide in the classroom • Introducing co-teachers – – – – – The Danish Co-teacher Experiment (Andersen et al. 2014) Randomly assigned to 35 schools Teacher educated The teacher and co-teacher prepare and teach the class in cooperation 10 lessons per week/class In Danish and math ~1 school year (Oct. -June) Co-teacher gender not randomly assigned Search and hire between Aug. 5 th –Oct 1 st

CO-TEACHER POLICY • Extension of the same empirical strategy: – Within-student across-subject variation in gender combinations of the co-teacher pairs • Illustration of variation (Danish classes) % of students 20 % 15 % 59 % 3 % Gender combination Female teacher w/ male co-teacher (mixed gender) Male teacher w/ female co-teacher (mixed gender) Female teacher w/ female co-teacher Male teacher w/ male co-teacher

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE RESEARCH • Achievement of boys are significantly higher when introducing a male in the classroom • Boys introduced to a co-teacher pair of mixed gender benefit significantly more compared to having a co-teacher pair of two females – Female teacher w/ Male co-teacher: 0. 27 SD – Male teacher w/ Female co-teacher: 0. 16 SD . . without harming the achievement of girls! • i. e. closes 6 th grade avg. reading gender gap: 0. 11 SD • Future research: Replicate experiment with randomisation of teacher char. (e. g. Papay et al 2016)