Orientare alla Scelta: Evidence on the role of teachers in the educational inequalities reproduction
Author: Elisa Manzella, manzellaelisa@gmail.com
Department: Sociology and social research
University: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy
Supervisor: Gianpaolo Barbetta
Year of completion: 2023
Language of dissertation: Italian
Keywords:
educational inequalities
, upper secondary school choice
, survey experiment
, randomized control trial
Areas of Research:
Education
, Stratification
Abstract
Recently, significant attention has been focused on the guidance advice, which plays a role in the reproduction of educational inequalities and described as so-called tertiary effects. Previous studies, both qualitative and quantitative, have reported the existence of an issue regarding the inequalities reproduction through this mechanism, without establishing robust causal connections and without translating the knowledge generated into intervention proposals. This study presents a randomized controlled trial combined with a factorial survey, preceded by an exploratory analysis through interviews. The treatment involves a light-touch online training aimed at teachers tasked with formulating guidance advice and aims to make them aware of these inequalities reproduction processes and to provide them with some tools to mitigate them. The experiment involved 196 schools, randomly assigned to the treatment group (102) and the control group (94). Treated teachers and controls were asked, both before and after the intervention, to provide simulated guidance in response to a composite set of characteristics of hypothetical students. The pre-intervention factorial survey causally confirms the presence of distortions in the guidance provided. It is demonstrated that the treatment led to a reduction in bias in the simulated advice post-intervention. Additionally, administrative data on the guidance advice provided by participating teachers to students in the corresponding school year are analyzed, estimating a more modest impact of the intervention but one that appears to be heading in the expected direction. Conclusions are drawn regarding the relevance of teacher awareness for future actions aimed at counteracting social inequalities in schools.
