Discrimination in Education: Methodology, Theory, and Empirics of Teachers' Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discriminatory Behavior

In 'Discrimination in Education' the author makes methodological, theoretical, and empirical contributions to the study of discriminatory behavior by teachers towards students of different ethnicity, social class background, and gender. He reviews different motivations to study discrimination in education and beyond, provides an indepth discussion of numerous definitions of discrimination, and shows the potentials and limitations of theories from different disciplines to explain discrimination on the individual level and inequality between groups in the education system. In the empirical part of the book, the author examines the two major determinants of discrimination - prejudice and stereotypes - using data from the German General Social Survey (GGSS/ALLBUS) and the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). The major empirical contribution in Discrimination in Education is an experimental study with a random sample of over 200 elementary school teachers. In this study, the author addresses several shortcomings of prior research. After discussing the complex findings of his experiment, he concludes by suggesting several routes future research should take to gather more evidence on discrimination in education, its determinants and consequences.In 'Discrimination in Education' leistet der Autor methodische, theoretische und empirische Beiträge zur Untersuchung diskriminierenden Verhaltens von Lehrkräften gegenüber Schülerinnen und Schülern unterschiedlicher Ethnizität, sozialer Herkunft und Geschlecht. Er beschreibt verschiedene Motivationen zur Untersuchung von Diskriminierung innerhalb und außerhalb des Bildungswesens, diskutiert ausführlich zahlreiche Definitionen von Diskriminierung und zeigt die Möglichkeiten und Grenzen von Theorien aus verschiedenen Disziplinen zur Erklärung von Diskriminierung auf der individuellen Ebene und der Ungleichheit zwischen Gruppen im Bildungswesen auf. Im empirischen Teil des Buches untersucht der Autor die beiden wichtigsten Determinanten von Diskriminierung - Vorurteile und Stereotype - anhand von Daten der Allgemeinen Bevölkerungsumfrage der Sozialwissenschaften (ALLBUS) und dem Nationalen Bildungspanel (NEPS). Der wichtigste empirische Beitrag in 'Discrimination in Education' ist eine experimentelle Studie mit einer Zufallsstichprobe von über 200 Grundschullehrkräften. Mit seinem Studiendesign adressiert der Autor verschiedene Limitationen der bisherigen Forschung. Nachdem er die vielschichtigen Ergebnisse seines Experiments diskutiert hat, macht er abschließend verschiedene Vorschläge, wie zukünftige Studien weitere Evidenz zum Problemkomplex Diskriminierung im Bildungswesen sammeln können

What Quantile Regression Does and Doesn't Do: A Commentary on Petscher and Logan (2014)

Petscher and Logan's (2014) description of quantile regression (QR) might mislead readers to believe it would estimate the relation between an outcome, y, and one or more predictors, x, at different quantiles of the unconditional distribution of y. However, QR models the conditional quantile function of y given x just as linear regression models the conditional mean function. This article's contribution is twofold: First, it discusses potential consequences of methodological misconceptions and formulations of Petscher and Logan's (2014) presentation by contrasting features of QR and linear regression. Second, it reinforces the importance of correct understanding of QR in empirical research by illustrating similarities and differences in various QR estimators and linear regression using simulated data

Ethnic and social class discrimination in education: Experimental evidence from Germany

Even though social class is at least as predictive of educational achievement as ethnicity in virtually all developed countries, experimental research on discrimination in education has overwhelmingly focused on the latter. We investigate both ethnic discrimination and social class discrimination by elementary school teachers in Germany. We conceptualize discrimination as causal effects of signals and use directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) to disentangle ethnic from social class discrimination. In our experiment, we asked randomly sampled elementary school teachers who teach immigrants to evaluate an essay written by a fourth-grader. Employing a 2x2x3 factorial design, we varied essay quality, child's gender, and ethnic and socioeconomic background using names as stimuli. We do not find evidence for discrimination in grading. However, our findings for teachers’ expectations of children's future performance suggest a discriminatory bias along the lines of both ethnicity and social class. The effect is conditional on essay quality - it only holds true for the better essay. We interpret our findings as evidence for models that highlight situational moderators such as the richness of information and ambiguity - e.g., statistical discrimination - but as evidence against simpler models of ingroup-favoritism or outgroup derogation, e.g., social identity theory or taste discrimination

Fermionization of two distinguishable fermions

In this work we study a system of two distinguishable fermions in a 1D harmonic potential. This system has the exceptional property that there is an analytic solution for arbitrary values of the interparticle interaction. We tune the interaction strength via a magnetic offset field and compare the measured properties of the system to the theoretical prediction. At the point where the interaction strength diverges, the energy and square of the wave function for two distinguishable particles are the same as for a system of two identical fermions. This is referred to as fermionization. We have observed this phenomenon by directly comparing two distinguishable fermions with diverging interaction strength with two identical fermions in the same potential. We observe good agreement between experiment and theory. By adding one or more particles our system can be used as a quantum simulator for more complex few-body systems where no theoretical solution is available

Beyond the success/failure of travelling urban models : exploring the politics of time and performance in Cape Town’s East City

In this paper, we highlight the importance for policy mobility research to engage with the ‘multiple temporalities’ of globally prevalent urban policy ideas to understand how these eventually come to shape localities incrementally, and as we show, in sometimes unexpected manners. Through the study of over 10 years of (failed) redevelopment policies in Cape Town’s East City, we formulate two distinct contributions to existing urban policy mobility research. Firstly, we show that looking at the micro-politics of policy mobility in particular places, and over time, can help elucidate how conflicts and resistance to globally mobile urban models shape which aspects of a policy solutions are rendered mobile or immobile, present or absent and, finally, what ends up being implemented in the local context through specific projects. Secondly, we expand on new materialist approaches to urban policy mobility, bringing insights from performativity theory, to look at how ideas and models come to be ‘enacted’ in the real world through various and, perhaps more importantly, uncoordinated means. Our case study shows that policy mobility research should attend to disparate, uncoordinated, more-than-human activities, and how these end up shaping places even in the absence of purposive planning. That way, we show how changing and complex configurations of more than human networks, objects, money, buildings, etc. support the concrete performance of abstract and mobile urban models – in place and over time