Are teachers' expectations different for racial minority than for European American students? A meta-analysis.

Abstract

Four quantitative meta-analyses examined whether teachers' expectations, referrals, positive and neutral speech, and negative speech differed toward ethnic minority students (i.e., African American, Asian American, and Latino/a) as compared with European American students. Teachers were found to hold the highest expectations for Asian American students (d = -.17). In addition, teachers held more positive expectations for European American students than for Latino/a (d =.46) or African American (d =.25) students. Teachers made more positive referrals and fewer negative referrals for European American students than for Latino/a and African American students (d =.31). Although teachers directed more positive and neutral speech (e.g., questions and encouragement) toward European American students than toward Latino/a and African American students (d =.21), they directed an equal amount of negative speech (e.g., criticism) to all students (d =.02). In general, teachers' favoring of European American students compared with African American and Latino/a students was associated with small but statistically significant effects. The meta-analyses suggest that teachers' expectations and speech vary with students' ethnic backgrounds. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved

An Unintentional, Robust, and Replicable Pro-Black Bias in Social Judgment

“…Participants may have consciously wanted to be more lenient on Black than White candidates. For example, in adopting this affirmative action criterion, participants may have been deliberately attempting to counter perceived historical disadvantages, perceived disadvantages in academic experience, perceived differences in diagnosticity of academic scores, or perceived cultural biases (e.g., Abrams, Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2012;Tenenbaum & Ruck, 2007). Alternatively, they may have been trying to correct underrepresentation of Blacks in academic advancement, or was the result of attitudinal preferences for Blacks over Whites.…”

An investigation of the relationship between teachers’ expectations and teachers’ perceptions of student attributes

“…In their review, Jussim and Harber (2005) conclude that teachers are not biased because the differences in teacher expectations for stigmatized demographic student subgroups closely correspond to differences in those groups' academic performance in previous grades and achievement tests. However, a substantial number of studies published after Jussim and Harber's (2005) review have found significant differences in teacher expectations for students of different demographic groups after the previous performance of students was controlled for (e.g., Glock and Krolak-Schwerdt 2013;McKown and Weinstein 2008;Rubie-Davies et al 2006;Speybroeck et al 2012;Tenenbaum and Ruck 2007;van den Bergh et al 2010). Generally, for students with equal performance records, teachers tend to have lower expectations for future academic performance when the student comes from a less affluent family and when the student is a boy.…”

Racism in Singapore: A Review and Recommendations for Future Research

“…For example, trainee teachers in Singapore tended to ascribe positive stereotypes to Chinese students (e.g., industrious) and negative stereotypes to Malay students (e.g., lazy; Khoo & Lim, 2004). While the effect of such stereotypes on academic achievement in Singapore is currently unknown, four meta-analyses in the United States suggested that teachers' expectations vary depending on the race of the student (Tenenbaum & Ruck, 2007) and that these expectations have a negative effect on racial minorities' academic achievement (McKown & Weinstein, 2008;Rubie-Davies, Hattie, & Hamilton, 2006).…”