– Overall, 68% of students in the kindergarten sample and 69% of first grade students were assigned to teachers who share their ethno-racial identity.
– Overall, 38% of kindergarten and 71% in first-grade classes use ability grouping for reading.
– 27% of African American kindergartners were placed in low ability groups compared with 25% of Latino/a kindergartners and 18% of White kindergarten students.
– Around 44% of African American and 46% of Latino/a first graders were placed in low ability groups compared with 37% of White first graders.
– Having a same-race teacher has no direct and independent effect on student placement in higher ability groups in the kindergarten.
– By first grade, placement with same-race teachers has a strong positive and significant effect on Latino/a students’ ability group placement and a marginally positive effect on African American students’ ability group placement.
– Once previous ability group placement is controlled for, placement with same-race teachers continue to be a positive and significant predictor of Latino/a students’ ability group placement in the first grade.
– Teachers’ perceptions about students’ learning abilities are influenced to a certain extent by student–teacher ethno-racial congruence resulting in significant postive effects on higher group placements in kindergarten and first grade.
– Both African American and Latino/a students are significantly less likely to be placed in higher reading ability groups compared with White students.
– Male kindergartners are significantly less likely to be placed in higher ability groups.
– The higher the percentage of African American students in class, the more likely students will be placed in higher ability groups.
– Students from higher SES are more likely to be placed in higher ability groups. However, as the average classroom SES increases, students are significantly less likely to be placed in higher ability groups.
2017 - Student–Teacher Ethno-Racial Matching and Reading Ability Group Placement in Early Grades
This study draws from the theoretical framework provided by Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model that considers the influence of proximal processes in the form of child–teacher interactions.
This study analyzes data from the Department of Education’s ECLS-K dataset.
The kindergarten sample consisted of 11,260 students in 2,180 classrooms, and the first-grade sample consisted of 12,410
students in 3,730 classrooms. The racial distribution of students in the kindergarten sample is 17% African American, 20% Latino/a, and 62% Whites. The racial distribution of students in the first-grade sample is similar to that of the kindergarten sample.
IV: Teacher–student ethno-racial match was calculated as a dummy variable indicating if a student was taught by a teacher who shares his or her ethno-racial identity. It was derived using information on students’ and teachers’ race/ethnicity from the ECLS-K dataset.
DV: Reading ability group placement was calculated for each student. The author followed Tach and Farkas’s (2006) conceptualization to construct a standardized measure of ability group placement.
Controls:
– Student-level control variables include race/ethnicity; gender; age in months; family SES; reading and math achievement scores in the fall and spring of kindergarten, and spring of first grade; and learning behavior (a composite based on teachers’ reports of child’s attentiveness, task persistence, eagerness to learn, learning independence, flexibility, and organization).
– Class-level control variables include average student age, proportion of male students, proportion of African American and Latino/a students, average SES, average math and
reading scores, and average learning behavior score.