Names, Expectations and
the Black-White Test Score Gap
David Figlio
University of Florida and NBER
Introduction
• Blacks and Whites differ dramatically
along a wide range of outcomes
• Education is no exception:
– Black-White test score gaps exist at the
beginning of school
– These gaps expand as children get older
– No shortage of explanations for this pattern
The role of teacher expectations?
• Recent experimental evidence (Bertrand
and Mullainathan, 2004) supports the
notion that Blacks are differentially treated
in the labor market, even by firms that
advertise equal opportunity
• Might subtle biases exist among teachers
as well?
Field evidence from social
psychology
• Several important studies conducted in the
1970s (Coates, 1972; Feldman and
Orchowsky, 1979; Rubovits and Maehr,
1973; Taylor, 1979)
• Consistent finding: teachers take Black
students less seriously than they do Whites
Questions regarding field
evidence
• Are similar behaviors to the one-time laboratory
encounters found in the classroom, with frequent
interaction and feedback?
• Are results from the 1970s still relevant several
decades later?
• Presuming that teachers still treat Black children
differently in 21st century classrooms, is this
differential treatment related to “Blackness” per
se, or to some factor like low socio-economic
status?
Do expectations matter?
• Recent work on teacher grading standards (e.g.,
Betts and Grogger, 2003; Figlio and Lucas, 2004)
suggests that high expectations make a difference
• Psychology research on teacher perceptions
(Jussim et al, 1976) suggests that teacher
perceptions impact student outcomes
• Key question: Do student-specific factors
influence teacher perception/expectation
formation?
Purposes of this paper
• Empirically document the degree to which
teachers treat children differently in the
classroom
• Investigate whether this differential treatment is
associated with student outcome differences
• Employ a quasi-experimental research design in a
large-sample setting that
– Reduces the confounding role of unobserved variables
– Allows for heterogeneous treatment effects
Implementing experimental
design on a large scale
• Ideal situation would be to randomly
assign children to teachers, and follow
children from year to year across multiple
teachers
• Problems with this approach:
– Schools don’t do this
– Even if they did, non-compliance could
dramatically affect estimates (see, e.g., Ding
and Lehrer, 2003)
An alternative approach:
Within-family comparisons
• Rather than follow children over time across
different settings, instead study children crosssectionally and assume that many of the
important unobserved variables (e.g., student
motivation or self-concept, family support) are
invariant within a household
• This is potentially problematic…more in a little
while…
But…
• Isn’t race (or SES) constant within a
household?
• (Or, put differently: When race is NOT
constant within a household, do we
honestly believe that the children identified
as Black and White within a household are
alike on unobservables??)
A solution: Names
• Recent work in psychology (e.g., Rosenthal,
Pelham, Shih) suggests that names influence selfperceptions and others’ perceptions about a
person, as well as personal decisions
• Considerable within-family variation in the types
of names given to children (especially in Black
families)
• Do teachers form different expectations of Black
(and White) children based on their names?
Is a name link plausible?
• In one large Florida district:
– Black-White test score gap increases by 32%
from third grade to ninth grade
– In third grade, 5% of the gap can be explained
by different naming patterns
– In ninth grade, 16% of the gap can be
explained by different naming patterns
– Are these relationships causal??
This paper
• Detailed data from a large Florida school district
• 164,000 children from 72,000 families, 1994-95 through
2000-01
• For kids born 1989 to present, I merge data with birth
certificates, so I have mom’s education, birth weight,
labor/delivery complications, prenatal care indicators
• Test the hypotheses that
– Teachers and administrators expect less from children with Black
racially-identifiable names or other names that may connote low
socio-economic status
– These diminished expectations in turn lead to students
performing less well on standardized tests
How to measure expectations?
• I want to measure expectations based on teachers’
observed treatment of children
• However, there are many unobserved variables
(such as motivation, self-perception, peer
behavior, etc.) that are correlated with observed
teacher treatment
• My solution: Find two teacher treatment
variables that are highly positively correlated, but
where an expectations story would have them
moving in opposite directions
Two measures of expectations
• Conditional on test scores, I consider
expectations to be low if:
– Students are more likely to be “socially promoted”
– Students are less likely to be classified as gifted
– Promotion and gifted status are EXTREMELY highly
correlated, so a prediction of low expectations leading
to a divergence in these two outcomes is a very strong
one
– Importantly, other plausible explanations for outcome
patterns (e.g., racial identity explanation) DO NOT
suggest that these variables move in opposite
directions
The problem with sibling
comparisons
• Of course, you should be concerned that
family assignment of names to children is
non-random, and transitions in naming
patterns may reflect transitions in
affluence, segregation, identity, etc. that
could affect both names and parenting in
ways unobservable to the researcher.
Refinement of sibling
comparison
• I will, in turn, only look at siblings who:
– Share the same mother and father
– Are born within two years of one another
– Are twins (small n)
Preview of findings
• Children with low-SES names are treated
differently from their siblings with more
homogenized names at school
• They tend to score less on tests than do
their siblings
What’s in a name?
• Linguistic analysis of names led to identification
of four attributes of low SES:
–
–
–
–
Certain prefixes
Certain suffixes
Presence of apostrophe
Combination of long name and exotic consonants used
– The more of these attributes present, the more likely
that the mother is a high school dropout
Attributes of families with certain
names
The families of children with NO low-SES
attributes are:
32% maternal dropouts
57% on Medicaid at time of birth
53% married at time of birth
19% with teenaged mother
41% Black
Attributes of families with certain
names
The families of children with ONE low-SES
attribute are:
38% maternal dropouts
68% on Medicaid at time of birth
37% married at time of birth
28% with teenaged mother
62% Black
Attributes of families with certain
names
The families of children with TWO low-SES
attributes are:
49% maternal dropouts
86% on Medicaid at time of birth
14% married at time of birth
42% with teenaged mother
96% Black
Attributes of families with certain
names
The families of children with THREE OR
MORE low-SES attributes are:
55% maternal dropouts
90% on Medicaid at time of birth
6% married at time of birth
52% with teenaged mother
98% Black
Examples of names
•
•
•
•
•
One attribute: Damarcus
Two attributes: Da’Quan
Three attributes: Da’Nayvious*
Four attributes: Da’Qwinzzis*
Most popular low-SES name given to Whites:
Jazzmyn, Chloe’ and Zakery
• Names given to fewer than 10 children and
therefore not mentioned explicitly in paper
Within-family transitions in names
• Among families where the first child had no low-SES
name attributes, 12% of succeeding same-sex siblings had
a low-SES name
• Among families where the first child had at least one lowSES name attribute, 18% of succeeding same-sex siblings
had a low-SES name
• For Black families, these percentages are 16% and 25%
• For families with a high school dropout mother, these
percentages are 12% and 19%
• Considerable name-mixing exists between first and
middle names as well, for the same child!
Examples of Black sibling pairs
Tras
Jennifer
Chauncey
Christine
Fedner
Ta’Shikki
Tarvel
Shanice
Gregory
Robbyn
Casronell
Nichole
Brandon
Rochelle
Diijon
Quinesha
Examples of Black sibling pairs
Tras
Arthur
Jennifer
Arneisha
Chauncey Chad
Christine
Sarah
Fedner
Junior
Ta’Shikki Melissa
Tarvel
Lamar
Shanice
Gregory
Danayvious Robbyn
Rudi
Sharrick
Casronell Antwon
Nichole
Shavon
Brandon
Winston
Rochelle
Ashlee
Diijon
Jior-dan
Quinesha Shimika
Name attributes and test scores
• Estimated effect of changing names:
• Drew to Dwayne: -0.68 pct pts math, -0.74 reading
• Dwayne to Damarcus: -1.10 pct pts math, -1.17 pct pts
reading
• Damarcus to Da’Quan: -0.73 pct pts math, -0.78 pct pts
reading
• Da’Quan to Da’Qwinzzis: -0.66 pct pts math, -0.70 pct
pts reading
• Very similar results if count attributes rather than relying
on empirical predictions of low SES
• Evidence that “Blackness” of a name matters somewhat,
but SES of the name matters much more
Children born to same father within
two years of one another
• Estimated effect of changing names:
• Drew to Dwayne: -0.52 pct pts math, -0.76
reading (not statistically significant)
• Dwayne to Damarcus: -1.00 pct pts math, -1.47
pct pts reading
• Damarcus to Da’Quan: -0.66 pct pts math, -0.99
pct pts reading
• Da’Quan to Da’Qwinzzis: -0.60 pct pts math,
-0.88 pct pts reading
The ultimate sibling sniff test:
Twins
• 616 pairs of twins
• Very little exploitable variation in names
because of similarity in names given to
twins, but there are a few cases of very
different names given to twins, e.g.,
– Lakeisha and Laura
– Nicholas and Shanicholas
– Monica and Demonica
The ultimate sibling sniff test:
Twins
• Estimated effect of changing names:
• Drew to Dwayne: -4.11 pct pts math, -1.81
reading (only statistically significant in math)
• Dwayne to Damarcus: -1.77 pct pts math, -3.46
pct pts reading (stat sig in reading)
• Damarcus to Da’Quan: -1.20 pct pts math, -2.40
pct pts reading
• Da’Quan to Da’Qwinzzis: -1.08 pct pts math,
-2.16 pct pts reading
Names and teacher expectations:
GIFTED REFERRAL
• Estimated effect of changing names:
• Drew to Dwayne: 0.5 pct pts
• Dwayne to Damarcus: -1.9 pct pts
(significant)
• Damarcus to Da’Quan: -1.3 pct pts
• Da’Quan to Da’Qwinzzis: -1.2 pct pts
Names and teacher expectations:
PROMOTION
• Estimated effect of changing names:
• Drew to Dwayne: 1.1 pct pts (marginal)
• Dwayne to Damarcus: 1.4 pct pts
(significant)
• Damarcus to Da’Quan: 1.0 pct pts
• Da’Quan to Da’Qwinzzis: 0.9 pct pts
Teachers, administrators, and
peers
• School administrators may also be responding to
names, and can’t distinguish their responses from
teacher responses—but that’s immaterial for my
story
• Peers may also respond to names, and form
friendships and social groups on this basis. I am
currently collecting data on the formation of
playground friendships, and will address this in
future work
Asian families as an alternative
• Expect signs to flip
• Long or Vivek has GPA | test score estimated
0.05 (p=0.21) lower than Asian named Alexander
or Charles
• Gifted result: 0.11 (p=0.00) higher
• Test scores: 4 pct pts (p=0.16) higher
• No apparent relationship re: promotion, though
this may be because almost no Asian student ever
repeats a grade
Heterogeneity across schools
• I hypothesize that name-based expectations
should be less pronounced in schools with
– Larger numbers of Black students
– Larger numbers of Black teachers
Black teachers
• The results are stronger in schools with fewer
Black teachers: (e.g. Damarcus vs. Dwayne)
– Math test score: Few Black teachers: -1.21 (0.56),
more Black teachers –0.29 (1.10)
– Reading test score: Few Black teachers: -2.03 (0.51),
more Black teachers 0.28 (0.95)
– Promotion: Few Black teachers: 1.6 (0.7), more Black
teachers 0.9 (1.3)
– Gifted: Few Black teachers: -2.5 (0.9), more Black
teachers –0.2 (1.4)
Conclusions
• One mechanism through which the widening of the
Black-White test score gap over the school cycle occurs
may be due to teacher and school expectations—possibly
leading to Black children learning less in school
• Extra exposure reduces this pattern, and also reduces the
likelihood of apparent name-based treatment differences
• Results suggestive that teachers are responding to a raceperceived class combination when forming expectations
• Role for professional development and teacher training?