Teachers’ Bias Against the Mathematical Ability of Female, Black, and Hispanic Students

Abstract

Researchers have long endeavored to understand whether teachers’ evaluations of their students’ mathematical ability or performance are accurate or whether their evaluations reveal implicit biases. To disentangle these factors, in a randomized controlled study (N = 390), we examined teachers’ evaluations of 18 mathematical solutions to which gender- and race-specific names had been randomly assigned. Teachers displayed no detectable bias when assessing the correctness of students’ solutions; however, when assessing students’ mathematical ability, biases against Black, Hispanic, and female students were revealed, with biases largest against Black and Hispanic girls. Specifically, non-White teachers’ estimations of students’ mathematical ability favored White students (both boys and girls) over students of color, whereas (primarily female) White teachers’ estimations of students’ mathematical ability favored boys over girls. Results indicate that teachers are not free of bias, and that teachers from marginalized groups may be susceptible to bias that favors stereotype-advantaged groups.

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy: A Model To Guide Cultural Transformation in STEM Departments

“…A key step in transforming a department is to adopt an inclusive definition of academic success: what it means to be a good student in one's discipline. This is particularly important given research about the prevalence of unconscious bias against women and black and Latinx people in science and math (6,64,75,76).…”

Beyond students: how teacher psychology shapes educational inequality

“…In such experiments, German teachers gave the same assignments worse grades, more negative evaluations, and less advanced school placement recommendations when the test taker had a Turkish (versus German) name [48][49][50]. US teachers evaluated ostensible Black, Latinx, and female students as lower in math ability than White and male students based on identical tests [51] and gave the same essay a lower grade when it was ascribed to a Black (versus White) student [52]. Indian teachers gave lower grades to the same exams identified as coming from lower-caste (versus high-caste) students [53] and Swiss teachers recommended lower academic tracks to students identified as having lower (versus higher) socioeconomic status [35].…”

“…Indian teachers gave lower grades to the same exams identified as coming from lower-caste (versus high-caste) students [53] and Swiss teachers recommended lower academic tracks to students identified as having lower (versus higher) socioeconomic status [35]. Notably, these studies suggest that teachers engage in disparate assessment more when evaluation criteria are less clearly defined (e.g., when teachers assign an overall grade or evaluate students' general ability level versus when they assess the correctness of a specific math solution or assign a score using a detailed rubric) [49,51,52], consistent with prior work on the role of shifting standards in discrimination [54].…”

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