In Denmark, a 9th grade student from a non-Western family will receive grades that are 0.4 points lower in Danish reading compared to their Danish classmates.
This is also true for boys and for pupils whose parents did not pursue higher education. A study conducted by the ROCKWOOL Foundation, Roskilde University and the University of Copenhagen showed that discrimination occurred in primary schools according to ethnicity, social background and gender.
However, the variation in grades among these groups is not solely based on possible academic differences, suggesting that teachers may consider factors beyond a student’s academic performance when assigning grades.
How can we be sure the grading is biased?
The study gathered the annual Danish reading grades of over 400,000 9th grade students between 2008 and 2014, comparing them to the grades received on their final exams (for which an external examiner is involved in assessing the student’s performance).
If the grading process was bias-free, a student’s annual grade would be roughly aligned with their final exam grade, as explained by researcher Anders Hjorth-Trolle from the ROCKWOOL Foundation: “If teachers’ assessment of students was completely neutral, there would be no difference – on average – in the annual grade for students who perform equally well in exams.”
This assessment now calls for action. According to Regitze Flannov, Head of committee for education at the Danish Teacher’s Association, the goal is to train teachers to “work with awareness to not reproduce stereotypes” as well as “how to grade students professionally.”
She explains that, in concrete terms, this could show up as teaching professors “how to organize their class, how to choose their course materials, or the words they use” to not reproduce biased preconceptions.
Consequences of biased grading
More than just a matter of numbers, recent political decisions raised entrance requirements for certain youth education programs, making grades an even more central factor for admission.
Starting from the 2030/2031 school year, students must have an average of at least 6.0 to be legally eligible for admission to programs such as general upper secondary school.
“9th grade elementary school students apply for admission to a youth education program before they receive their exam grades, so the student can – consciously or unconsciously – base his or her choice of youth education on the signals he or she receives from the grades. Therefore, it is important that annual grades reflect the student’s real academic level and only that,” says Anders Hjorth-Trolle.
“In 5 years, I hope we won’t be doing the same mistakes”
This becomes more problematic for some students, considering that biases add up: meaning that a boy from a non-EU family with parents who didn’t pursue higher education will, on average, receive an annual grade in Danish reading approximately 1.4 points lower (0.4 + 0.4 + 0.6 = 1.4) than a Danish girl with highly educated parents. Even when both students score the same on the Danish reading exam.
“I was wondering when we would take actions, and in 5 years, I hope we won’t be doing the same mistakes,” Flannov says before adding; “This is not me bashing my colleagues, we are all biased as a society. But we support the experts, and we are interested in action being taken according to actual, factual knowledge.”
