The presence of a black teacher can take students further | Brazil

According to their calculations, increasing the proportion of black teachers from zero to 50 percent—roughly the same proportion in the general population—increases the probability of completing high school by 1.9 percent, the probability of entering college by 3.9 percent, and of finishing school by age 25 by 5.2 percent. Greater education also translates into improved monthly labor income when they reach adulthood: an increase of 2.3%.

These are percentages that may seem small at first glance, but they translate into a 30% drop in the grade gap between black and white students with similar characteristics who attended the same schools. At age 27, the same change means a 60% reduction in the income gap between blacks and whites.

The exercise also showed that the effects are stronger for boys with below-average academic performance, precisely those who are most likely to drop out of high school.

In Brazil, black people are 53% less likely to complete higher education and earn 41% less than white people. A recent report from the Center for Studies and Data on Racial Inequalities (Cedra) showed that the school dropout rate among blacks was 9.3%, almost double that of whites (5%).

To arrive at these results, Lopes compared students with similar characteristics—gender, race, and parental education, as well as similar family structure, socioeconomic level, and grades—but who differed only in the proportion of black teachers they were exposed to in a given year.

Using a similar methodology, the economist also tracked the performance of black students in sixth grade. The results point in the same direction: there was an improvement in grades in Portuguese, in the probability of finishing high school and entering university.

In both cases, the exercise revealed no negative effects of increasing the presence of black teachers on white students in the same school. “In other words, it is possible to improve the situation of one group without worsening the situation of others,” says the author.

The greater presence of black teachers influences students in two ways, he said. One is that teachers themselves, because they share the same ethnicity and similar life stories, may end up paying more attention to these students, which results in monitoring, support, and life advice.

Another possibility is to act as aspirational role models. “Often these students from minority groups feel underrepresented. There is a lack of success stories of people who came from similar places like them and experienced similar problems. So it’s a question of inequality of aspirations, which is fueled by the lack of success stories,” describes Lopes.

In an additional exercise that helps illustrate this effect, the economist analyzed the performance in Portuguese and mathematics of black students in classes where the teacher of these subjects was white. The results showed that as the proportion of black teachers increased, grades in these subjects also increased. “It is very telling that these results are not happening because of the teachers in specific subjects, but because of the proportion itself,” he explains.

“The teacher projects his past onto the young person, recognizes the difficulties he is going through, and the student projects his future onto the teacher, who has overcome all the barriers and found himself in a more comfortable position,” explains the founder of the Educafro Brasil pre-university course network, Frei David. He reports observing results similar to those found by Lopes in a classroom that operated for a decade in the Campo Grande neighborhood, west of Rio, with classes taught only by blacks with master’s or doctorate degrees. The dropout rate in this class was significantly lower than that observed in another group, in São João de Meriti, in Baixada Fluminense, which had only white teachers, he said.

For Lopes, the findings indicate that policies focused on increasing and retaining Black teachers can be beneficial for these students. According to 2024 school census data, 44.4% of teachers are Black, lower than the national average of about 55%, as is the student body (56.8%). “Ignoring regional differences, there is an underrepresentation of 12.4 percentage points in the number of teachers to reflect the student population. To achieve parity, the number of black teachers would need to increase by 27.9%,” he notes.

“The question of a model of success, from which young people can draw inspiration, is important. For blacks, for a long time, there were mainly footballers or artists. This professional inequality affects the expectations of younger generations, ending up being perpetuated in culture. The place of blacks, of women… It is something which conditions”, explains the coordinator of the Center for Racial Studies (Neri) to Insper, Michael França. “But if you improve opportunities in the labor market so that everyone can do a certain job, regardless of race, gender or other criteria, all of these people become role models for younger generations.”

França cites as an example another study, carried out by economists Jorge Ikawa, Clarice Martins, Pedro Sant’Anna and Rogerio Santarrosa. The work showed that, in municipalities that elect black mayors, black student registrations for the national high school exam (Enem) increase by around 25% two years after the elections, and these rates remain higher even after the end of the mandate.

According to him, the results found by Lopes may not even have existed a few decades ago. “The racial question has changed a lot in Brazil since 2000. There has been a greater appreciation of black identity, a greater reflection on this agenda. The debate on racial aspects has advanced a lot,” he underlines.

At the age of 17, Laurenice Pires, now vice-president of Women in Global Health Brazil and collaborator at Fiocruz, entered a black and disadvantaged pre-university course, also known as PVNC. “The big difference in this experience was coming into contact with other young black people who had already entered university, they were the ones who organized the course. It was a reference: if they could do it, I also had my chance,” he says.

It was 1995 and there were no PVNC units in his neighborhood, Realengo, in Rio. The experience was so meaningful in Laurenice’s life that after passing the social work course at PUC, she and some friends helped create a unit in the course where she lived.

“My class in middle school was almost entirely black, we joked that it was like a ‘reverse quota’. The teaching staff, on the other hand, was all white. But we already had this debate in the class: what it means to be a peripheral student, the contradictions in the speeches… several themes that were present in the black movement but which today, I see, are more common sense,” he says. “So I can see the result of that fight by Frei David and others early on to include black students in public universities. »

According to Cedra, 58.9% of blacks aged 20 to 29 had completed high school or had not completed higher education in 2023, an increase of almost 13 percentage points compared to 2012. In contrast, the proportion of black professors in universities was still significant: only 15.2% in public universities and 18% in private universities.

Despite the progress, it is still a debate that remains behind in schools, continues França. “I work a lot with public administrations, secretaries and senior education officials, and even today, some have difficulty understanding why certain students are falling behind. It is not a question of bad will, but of debate,” he says. “It’s something relatively basic, several studies show it, but there is a huge misunderstanding about how different channels affect children’s performance differently. Many still understand that treating everyone equally is the best way forward, but they don’t look first at the inequalities they cause.”