Revealing Stereotypes 2: Evidence from Immigrants in Schools

Last registered on May 13, 2024
View Trial History

Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
Revealing Stereotypes 2: Evidence from Immigrants in Schools
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0013570
Initial registration date
May 06, 2024

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
May 13, 2024, 12:11 PM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

Country
Italy
Region

Primary Investigator

Name
Michela Carlana
Affiliation
Harvard Kennedy School
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Eliana La Ferrara
PI Affiliation
PI Name
Paolo Pinotti
PI Affiliation

Additional Trial Information

Status
Completed
Start date
2020-12-01
End date
2021-05-31
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
stereotypes, IAT, bias in grading, immigrants, teachers
JEL code(s)
I24; J15
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
We study how people change their behavior after being made aware of bias. Teachers in Italian schools give lower grades to immigrant students relative to natives of comparable ability. In an online experiment implemented in 2021 as follow-up from Alesina et at (2018), we randomize teachers to either an active control group (generic debasing message) or an IAT disclosure. We find that IAT disclosure and generic debiasing have similar average effects, but there is heterogeneity: teachers with stronger negative stereotypes do not respond to generic debiasing, but change their behavior when informed about their own IAT.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Carlana, Michela, Eliana La Ferrara and Paolo Pinotti. 2024. "Revealing Stereotypes 2: Evidence from Immigrants in Schools." AEA RCT Registry. May 13. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.13570-1.0
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Our experiment aims to isolate the effect of the unexpected component of bias revelation and to compare the effects of revealing one's own bias to those of a more generic debiasing message. After teachers completed the baseline survey, we randomized them into two groups, at the school level. The first group (active control) received a generic debiasing message, with information on implicit biases in society and their potential negative impact on students. The second group (treatment) received the generic debiasing message plus information on their own IAT score.
Intervention Start Date
2021-02-01
Intervention End Date
2021-02-28

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Grades given by teachers
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Teachers received the debiasing message and, based on the randomization at school level, their IAT score by email at the end of January 2021. Approximately three weeks later, we contacted them again and asked them to grade 10 short tests in their subject (alternatively, math, literature, or English). We randomized across teachers the name of the student reported in each answer, between typical immigrant names (two tests with female names, two with male ones) and typical native names (three tests with female names, three with male ones). The tests were prepared by consultants hired by our team who were teachers in middle schools outside our sample.
Experimental Design Details
Randomization Method
randomization done in office by a computer
Randomization Unit
School
Was the treatment clustered?
Yes

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
74 different schools
Sample size: planned number of observations
179 teachers
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
2-3 teacher per school
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Harvard University
IRB Approval Date
2020-07-21
IRB Approval Number
IRB20-0947
IRB Name
Bocconi University
IRB Approval Date
2020-09-04
IRB Approval Number
Details not available
Analysis Plan

Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
Yes
Intervention Completion Date
February 28, 2021, 12:00 +00:00
Data Collection Complete
Yes
Data Collection Completion Date
May 31, 2021, 12:00 +00:00
Final Sample Size: Number of Clusters (Unit of Randomization)
Was attrition correlated with treatment status?
No
Final Sample Size: Total Number of Observations
Final Sample Size (or Number of Clusters) by Treatment Arms
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Abstract
We study how people change their behavior after being made aware of bias. Teachers in Italian schools give lower grades to immigrant students relative to natives of comparable ability. In two experiments, we reveal to teachers their own stereotypes, measured by an Implicit Association Test (IAT). In the first, we find that learning one's IAT before assigning grades reduces the native-immigrant grade gap. In the second, IAT disclosure and generic debiasing have similar average effects, but there is heterogeneity: teachers with stronger negative stereotypes do not respond to generic debiasing, but change their behavior when informed about their own IAT.
Citation
Alesina, Alberto, et al. Revealing stereotypes: Evidence from immigrants in schools. American Economic Review. Forthcoming
URL
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20191184&&from=f

Reports & Other Materials