Teaching, Learning, and Race: Toward the Identification of Mechanisms Underlying Own- and Other-Race Teacher Effects

Abstract

A growing collection of studies from educational economists has shown that Black students learn more when they are taught by teachers who share their racial identity. Scholars have hypothesized mechanisms on both the teacher side and student side that could drive these effects, but little causal research has examined this specifically. To help address this gap, I present three experimental studies that draw on the intersection of critical education theory, social psychology, and the science of teaching and learning. The first study focuses on teachers, and tests whether and how their instructional decisions about curriculum, pedagogy, and student errors differ for Black versus White students, and whether differences depend on teacher implicit racial bias. The second study examines the effect of student race on teachers' diagnoses and remediation of student misunderstanding. The final study focuses on high school students, and tests whether and how their learning, anxiety, and perceptions of teachers are affected when they taught by an own- versus other-race teacher. I find that student race affected teachers’ decisions about curriculum and pedagogy, but not about grading/evaluation and feedback. Additionally, student race affected teachers’ interpretation of student errors, but this depended on the degree of teachers’ racial biases. On the student side, I find that teacher race affected students’ perceptions of teachers’ trustworthiness. Additionally, Black students experienced more race-related anxiety compared to White students, but this anxiety was not buffered by own-race teachers. Taken together, mixed findings from these studies suggest that both teacher racial bias and student trust may contribute to own-and other race teacher effects, but more research is needed to identify other dominant drivers of these effects.