Caste identity and teachers’ biased expectations: Evidence from Bihar, India

Abstract

We investigate whether teachers hold systematically biased expectations about students based on caste identity, using data from a large, detailed, and representative survey of public schools in Bihar, India. Students take standardized tests that determine their actual academic rank, while teachers independently rate each student’s relative standing within the class. The gap between a student’s actual rank and their teacher’s perceived rating gives us a measure of the teacher’s Evaluation Bias. Using a teacher fixed-effect approach, we find that forward caste teachers systematically underestimate the performance of backward caste students compared to forward caste peers taught in the same class. These caste-based differences in Evaluation Bias remain robust to alternative definitions of backward caste status and different measures of students’ performance.