“Good Looks, Good Grades? An Empirical Analysis of the Influence of Students’ Physical Attractiveness on Grading by Teachers”, 2012-04 ():
Many educational studies like PISA have shown that school performance is not purely determined by scholarly achievements. Apart from students’ efforts, there are other criteria that influence school grades. One of these is the physical attractiveness of students, an aspect that has largely been ignored in national educational studies up to now.
Based on a sample of 3 secondary high school classes in a large German city we tested the extent to which school grades are affected by the physical appearance of students and whether this effect is moderated by the so-called “beauty is beastly” effect.
The results of our empirical analysis show that school grades are statistically-significantly influenced by physical attractiveness. We could, however, not find any support for the “beauty is beastly” effect.
[Keywords: education, social inequality, school grades, physical attractiveness, gender, discrimination.]