This study explored the extent to which the ethnic identity of a writer and the background (gender and area of teaching) of a rater can influence mainstream teacher candidates' evaluation of English as a second language (ESL) writing, using a matched-guise method. A one-page essay was elicited from an ESL learner enrolled in an intensive English program and was manipulated to incorporate error patterns often observed among Chinese-and Spanish-speaking learners. Teacher candidates were led to believe it was produced by an ESL learner whose first language was either Chinese or Spanish. One-hundred-sixty-three undergraduate students enrolled in a teacher education program at a U.S. university were asked to score the ESL essay holistically, provide qualitative comments, identify the three most troublesome errors in order of seriousness, and offer advice on how to improve ESL writing. No significant effects of writer identity on the holistic scoring were detected, but the teacher candidates revealed different categories of rater responses depending on the writer's identity. Conversely, although the raters' backgrounds (gender and area of teaching) had significant effects on global scoring, they did not have any significant impact on the qualitative nature of rater responses. doi: 10.1002/tesq.289 C urrently, at least one in five school-age children in the United States has a foreign-born parent, and many start to learn English as a new language at school (Capps et al., 2005). The percentage of English learners (ELs) in K-12 schools has shown steady growth from 8.7%, or an estimated 4.1 million students, in the 2002-2003 school year to 9.1%, or an estimated 4.4 million students, in 2011 -2012(Kena et al., 2014. Moreover, the representation of ELs in U.S. schools shows a high concentration in early school years, in part because children who enter preschool or kindergarten as ELs develop their TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 0, No. 0, xxxx 2016 Published 2016. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA 1 English proficiency as they move up grade levels, usually by third grade (Garc ıa, Arias, Murri, & Serna, 2010). In contrast to the increasingly diverse student population nationwide, teachers entering the profession continue to reflect majority culture in that approximately 83% of the U.S. teaching force identify themselves as White and monolingual in English (Goldring, Gracy, Bitterman, & Broughman, 2013). Previous research demonstrates that the teachers' beliefs, attitudes, and practices in the classroom can support or impair ELs and their academic achievement (de Jong & Harper, 2005;Flores & Smith, 2009). However, little is known about teacher candidates' attitudes toward ELs and their linguistic and cultural differences.This study set out to examine preservice teachers' perspectives on English as a second language (ESL) writing. Using a matched-guise protocol (Roberts & Cimasko, 2008;Rubin & Williams-James, 1997), we presented 163 undergraduate students enrolled in teacher education programs ...