Elena Meschi (University of Milano-Bicocca)
Francesco Scervini
We study whether exposure to far-right political success affects teachersÂ’ behavior and the academic performance of immigrant students. We combine Italian administrative data on standardized test scores (INVALSI), covering 10 cohorts of students in 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 10th grade, with detailed information on electoral outcomes. Exploiting variation in local anti-immigrant political sentiment and the timing of election campaigns, we proxy local attitudes using the vote share of far-right parties in recent elections, and capture short-run fluctuations in political salience through indicators for pre-election periods. By comparing immigrant and native students within the same municipalities over time, we implement a difference-in-differences framework that isolates the impact of political exposure. We find that in municipalities with stronger support for far-right parties, electoral campaigns are associated with a widening gap between teacher-assigned grades and standardized test performance for immigrant students. This pattern suggests that electoral campaigns amplify the effects of anti-immigrant sentiment on educational inequality. Our results provide causal evidence that political environments shape behavior within public institutions and contribute to disparities in educational outcomes.