Michela Carlana - Harvard

Revealing Stereotypes: Evidence from Immigrants in Schools

    Date:  01/23/2020 (Thu)

    Time:  3:30pm- 5:00pm

    Location:  Seminar will be held on-site: Gross Hall 270

    Organizer:  Marcos Rangel


Meeting Schedule: Login or email the organizer to schedule a meeting.

    All meetings will be held in the same location as the seminar unless otherwise noted.

   6:30PM - Dinner at Nana's (on Jan 22 2020) with Marcos A. Rangel, Sarah Komisarow, Duncan Thomas

    8:45am - Breakfast at Washington Duke Inn with Matt Johnson and Sarah Gaither

   10:30am - Xiao Yu Wang (Social Sciences 213)

   11:00am - Peter Arcidiacono (Social Sciences 201A)

   11:30am - Fernando Saltiel (Social Sciences 210B)

   12:00pm - Lunch: Romina Tome and Marwa AlFakhri (Romina and Marwa will meet speaker on Saltiel's office and bring her to Gross Hall after)

    1:15pm - Marcela G. Rubio

    1:45pm - Marcos A. Rangel

    2:15pm - Claire Le Barbenchon

    2:45pm - Rob Garlick

    3:15pm - Prep/Personal Time

    3:30pm - Seminar Presentation (3:30pm to 5:00pm)

    4:45pm - Leave for airport


    Additional Comments:  If individuals become aware of their stereotypes, do they change their behavior? We study this question in the context of teachers’ bias in grading immigrants and native children in middle schools. Teachers give lower grades to immigrant students compared to natives who have the same performance on standardized, blindly-graded tests. We then relate differences in grading to teachers’ stereotypes, elicited through an Implicit Association Test (IAT). We find that math teachers with stronger stereotypes give lower grades to immigrants compared to natives with the same performance. Literature teachers do not differentially grade immigrants based on their own stereotypes. Finally, we share teachers’ own IAT score with them, randomizing the timing of disclosure around the date on which they assign term grades. All teachers informed of their stereotypes before term grading increase grades assigned to immigrants. Revealing stereotypes may be a powerful intervention to decrease discrimination, but it may also induce a reaction from individuals who were not acting in a biased way.