Helena Skyt Nielsen
ifo/CESifo Visiting Researcher
Helena Skyt Nielsen, Aarhus University, CESifo Guest from 9 to 13 January 2023.
Overcoming the Gender Gap in Math Teaching
Helena Skyt Nielsen’s is presently concerned with understanding what makes an effective math teacher in elementary school. She studies how a teacher’s attitude towards adaptivity affects the math gender gap in students. With some colleagues, she has gathered information on teachers’ practices and beliefs and students’ approaches to solving arithmetic problems. In combination, these elements allow them to open the black box revealing how students learn math in elementary school, and how instructional practices and beliefs makes a difference for male and females students.
Ms. Nielsen’s research agenda revolves around the economics of education and family economics. Her works in progress include: Fade-out of Educational Interventions; The Effect of Teacher's Aides on Inclusion of Students with Special Needs; Teenage Mothers and the Next Generation: Benefits of Delay?; Lowering the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility: Consequences for Juvenile Crime; Gender Convergence in Education Choice: The Role of Institutions and Peers; and The Effect of Economic Incentives on a Father’s Child Leave: Evidence from a Reform of Leave Schemes.
Ms. Nielsen’s main services to the profession include editorial responsibilities through associate editorships at Labour Economics, Journal of Political Economy: Microeconomics and Scandinavian Journal of Economics as well as services to various research councils including the European Research Council. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief at Labour Economics (2014-2017). Furthermore, she has been a member of the Independent Research Fund Denmark and the Danish Economic Councils.
Helena Skyt Nielsen is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Economics and Business Economics at Aarhus University, where she is also affiliated with Trygfonden’s Centre for Child Research. She is an IZA research fellow. She holds a PhD and an MSc in Economics from Aahus University and an MPhil from the University of Sussex.
