Biases and stereotypes can negatively impact the ways that teachers influence students' career choices. For example, a teacher may see some occupations as "more masculine" and others as "more feminine," and this can influence what career tracks they recommend for their pupils.
How can we ensure that educators are controlling their biases when evaluating their students? Recent research published in the American Economic Review by Harvard Kennedy School professors Michela Carlana and Eliana La Ferrara, and Bocconi University professor Paolo Pinotti, sheds light on how awareness about one's own personal biases may help to mitigate the effects these stereotypes have when working with students. In this video, Professor Carlana explains how she and her colleagues used a randomized controlled trial to determine whether informing educators about their biases towards immigrant students led to better outcomes for students in the Italian school system.
Read more about Implicit Stereotypes in Teachers' Track Recommendations.