%0 Report
        %A Goulas, Sofoklis
%A Megalokonomou, Rigissa
%A Sartori, Tommaso
        %T All Eyes on the Nerd? The Unequal Distribution of Teachers’ Attention
        %D 2025
        %8 2025 Nov
        %I Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        %C Bonn
        %7 IZA Discussion Paper
        %N 18294
        %U https://www.iza.org/publications/dp18294
        %X Teachers play a central role in shaping how students benefit from peers, yet little is known about how classroom composition affects their attention-allocation decisions. We conduct a large-scale randomized experiment using realistic class- room vignettes to assess how teachers engage with students under varying scenarios and objectives. The presence of a high achiever reduces the likelihood that teachers engage with a low achiever by about 8%, with substantially larger effects when teachers prioritize task success, consistent with convenience-based decision-making. Using administrative data, we show that low achievers perform worse when quasi-randomly assigned to a classroom with an exceptional student.
        %K randomized controlled trial
%K attention allocation
%K teacher behavior
%K educational inequality
%K peer effects