When the Teacher Marks the Difference. Grading Practices, Social Inequalities, and Student Educational Outcomes.

This dissertation aims at providing a general theoretical framework through which teacher effects can be analyzed through a sociological perspective in the Italian educational system. This framework accounts for 1) tertiary effects, defined as the impact teachers have on students’ educational decisions, also indirectly via students’ evaluations, according to their variation in expectations and biases related to students’ sociodemographic characteristics; 2) primary effects related to teachers, defined as the impact teachers have on students’ performance according to their grading preferences, quality, characteristics. The empirical chapters provide three different empirical examples framed in the sociological literature about tertiary effects, relying on quantitative methodological approaches for the study of teacher bias. The common methodological framework of the empirical chapters relies on the study of grading practices, as a comparison between an “objective” and unbiased measure of students’ competences, such as standardized test scores, and teacher grades, which are thought to be more subjective and possibly biased measure of students’ academic ability.