In the Name of the Son: A Field Experiment on Schooling Discrimination

Last registered on February 20, 2018
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
In the Name of the Son: A Field Experiment on Schooling Discrimination
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0002731
Initial registration date
February 20, 2018

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
February 20, 2018, 7:13 PM EST

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

Locations

Country
Spain
Region
Madrid

Primary Investigator

Name
David Martinez de Lafuente
Affiliation
European University Institute
Contact Primary Investigator

Other Primary Investigator(s)

Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2017-11-01
End date
2019-04-30
Keywords
Education
Additional Keywords
Discrimination, Immigration
JEL code(s)
C93 I24 J15
Secondary IDs
Abstract
The present project investigates to what extent discriminatory behaviors from schools' side towards prospective students constitute a potential driver for the social segregation observed in the education system of some Spanish region. More specifically, this project studies whether schools show less willingness to interact with families of different ethnic origins and how cultural assimilation efforts from the side of migrants might mitigate such discrimination. In order to do so, we run a correspondence experiment on the population of schools.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Martinez de Lafuente, David. 2018. "In the Name of the Son: A Field Experiment on Schooling Discrimination." AEA RCT Registry. February 20. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.2731-1.0
Former Citation
Martinez de Lafuente, David. 2018. "In the Name of the Son: A Field Experiment on Schooling Discrimination." AEA RCT Registry. February 20. https://www.socialscienceregistry.org/trials/2731/history/25968
Sponsors & Partners
Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
Intervention Start Date
2018-02-25
Intervention End Date
2018-04-21

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
- Call-back rates
- Positive-negative response indicator
Primary Outcomes (explanation)
- Call-back rates: Indicator variable that takes value 1 if the school replied and 0 otherwise.
- Positive-negative response indicator: Responses will be further classified into either positive or negative responses.

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
Not available.
Experimental Design Details
Using a correspondence experiment, this project aims at assessing, first, whether schools in Madrid discriminate against immigrant households during the school pre-registration period and, second, whether this discrimination is attenuated when immigrant households signal higher cultural integration effort.

My test involves the creation of three different fictitious family profiles (native, "not culturally integrated'' immigrant and "culturally integrated'' immigrant) and sending emails to schools in Madrid during the school pre-registration period. The fictitious couples will show interest in the schools and will make a request to the administrative staff for an interview and a visit to the school.

In order to signal household's origin, I will use immigrant-sounding names or native-sounding names for both parents. Cultural integration effort will instead be signalled using the child's name, that will be explicitly mentioned in the email. Given that naming decision is a crucial expression of cultural identity, immigrant parents giving a traditionally Spanish name to their child can signal a higher cultural integration effort than those immigrants who name their child using a name associated to their own cultural background.
I then plan to measure differential call-back rates and invitations to interviews between the three fictitious family profiles in order to evaluate whether schools tend to discriminate immigrant households more.
Randomization Method
Randomization done in office by a computer.
Randomization Unit
School.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
>2,500 schools.
Sample size: planned number of observations
>2,500 schools.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
>800 schools in each treatment condition.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
IRB Approval Date
IRB Approval Number
Analysis Plan

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Post-Trial

Post Trial Information

Study Withdrawal

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Intervention

Is the intervention completed?
No
Data Collection Complete
Data Publication

Data Publication

Is public data available?
No

Program Files

Program Files
Reports, Papers & Other Materials

Relevant Paper(s)

Reports & Other Materials