- The analyses presented here identify the extent to which children receive different evaluations from their teachers depending on the racial/ethnic match of teachers and students.
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This study is distinct from previous work because they examine the assessment of an individual child by multiple teachers.
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The results indicate that Black children receive worse assessments of their externalizing behaviors (e.g. arguing in class and disrupting instruction) when they have a non-Hispanic white teacher than when they have a Black teacher.
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Further, these results exist net of school context and the teacher’s own ratings of the behavior of the class overall.
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Overall, minority students are more likely to attend public schools and schools that receive Title I funding than non-Hispanic white students. Minority students are also more likely than their non-Hispanic white counterparts to attend schools with a higher percentage of minority teachers.
Minority students (with the exception of Asians) are the ones most likely to be rated as having more externalizing behaviors.
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Children who attend schools that receive Title I funding receive poorer behavior ratings than their counterparts in schools that do not receive these funds.
- The results indicate there are important differences in the behavioral ratings children receive based on their ascribed characteristics.
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There are persistent racial/ethnic differences in the ratings of student’s behaviors and, generally speaking, teachers’ ratings tend to be consistent with the societal stereotypes associated with the racial and ethnic groups when rating students’ externalizing behavior.
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Black students are more likely to be rated as exhibiting more externalizing or problematic behaviors in school, while Asian students are perceived as exhibiting fewer of these behaviors.
In a model distinguished by its multi-racial emphasis, student’s blackness is still shown to be a significant predictor of unfavorable teacher-perceptions.
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However, these results also indicate that students do not receive the same ratings from all teachers. If teachers are of the same racial/ethnic group as the student, the ratings are less consistent with these expectations.
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Teacher-student racial congruence is again highlighted as a contextual factor helping to counter balance stereotypes.
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Black students suffer most as they are stereotyped most negatively, and are the least likely to have a minority teacher who might be able to sympathize with their plight and look past these stereotypes when assessing the student’s behavior.
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These differences persist even when they control for classroom and school characteristics.
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School type is significantly associated with the behavioral assessments children receive. Students in private schools tend to receive less positive behavioral assessments compared to their peers in private religious and public schools.
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Minority children in majority-dominated schools are the most likely to experience this racial mismatch and to be rated less favorably by their teachers. Thus, the effects of teacher-student mismatch presented here are disproportionately experienced by minority children nationwide.