Quant Hub seminar: Unequal Access to Qualified Teachers and the Reproduction of Academic Inequality
Teachers play a formative role in shaping children’s school experiences and ultimately, their educational outcomes. In this study, I use full population Danish administrative data to explore the consequences of unequal access to qualified teachers in three steps. First, I document strong patterns of teacher-student sorting in Denmark, one of the world’s most equal societies and generous welfare states. In short, teachers from higher socioeconomic backgrounds and with higher prior academic achievements tend to select into schools serving high-achieving children from privileged backgrounds. Second, I investigate the effect of teacher qualifications on students’ test score performance. To facilitate causal estimates, I exploit plausibly exogenous shocks to teacher changes induced by parental leave spells, which, I show, are unrelated to an extensive set of observed classroom characteristics, including student well-being and measures of classroom climate. Finally, I explore differentials in the impact of teacher qualifications by students’ socioeconomic background. I find no consistent evidence of differential teacher effects, implying that teacher-induced learning inequalities are mainly driven by teachers’ sorting behavior. This finding highlights that policies designed to equalize access to quality teachers can be effective in reducing learning disparities.

Teams link: teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_NjFkNmE0NjEtMjU1Yy00OTc0LTk1NDktNmVkOTc5NjE2OWQ4%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%22cc95de1b-97f5-4f93-b4ba-fe68b852cf91%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%224003529c-f252-47aa-8e83-ce1eff28df4a%22%7d

Meeting ID: 310 689 532 293
Passcode: iY6Vw3Xf
Date: 17 February 2025, 12:45
Venue: 15 Norham Gardens, 15 Norham Gardens OX2 6PY
Venue Details: Seminar Room D and Teams
Speaker: Dr Said Hussan (Nuffield College)
Organising department: Department of Education
Hosts: Professor Steve Strand, Professor Robert Klassen
Part of: Quantitative Methods Hub Seminars
Booking required?: Not required
Cost: Free
Audience: Public
Editors: Hannah Freeman, Heather Sherkunov, Kristina Khoo