A Community College Instructor Like Me: Race and Ethnicity Interactions in the Classroom

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Fairlie, Robert W.; Hoffmann, Florian; Oreopoulos, Philip
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Santa Cruz; University of British Columbia; University of Toronto; National Bureau of Economic Research; Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR)
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.8.2567
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 2567-2591
• 关键词: high wage workers; role-models; gender-gap; teachers; achievement; women; sex

摘要

Administrative data from a large and diverse community college are used to examine if underrepresented minority students benefit from taking courses with underrepresented minority instructors. To identify racial interactions, we estimate models that include both student and classroom fixed effects and focus on students with limited choice in courses. We find that the performance gap in terms of class dropout rates and grade performance between white and underrepresented minority students falls by 20 to 50 percent when taught by an underrepresented minority instructor. We also find these interactions affect longer-term outcomes such as subsequent course selection, retention, and degree completion.