adds to the growing body of research saying that teachers鈥� expectations of students matter, and that they tend to underestimate the academic abilities of students of color.
The study, authored by Hua-Yu Sebastian Cherng, an assistant professor of international education at New York University鈥檚 Steinhardt School of Education, was published in the journal Social Science Research. Cherng analyzed data from about 10,000 high school sophomores and their teachers, from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002.
After controlling for factors like standardized test scores and homework completion, Cherng found that both math and English teachers were more likely to perceive their class as too difficult for students of color compared to white students.Teachers were most likely to say their class was too difficult for black students鈥�18 percent of math teachers and 13 percent of English teachers said that was the case. Meanwhile, only 8 percent of math teachers and 6 percent of English teachers said their class was too difficult for white students.
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There was a 6 percentage-point gap between both math and English teachers鈥� expectations for white and Latino students, and a 4 percentage-point gap between English teacher expectations for white and Asian-American students. There was just a 2 percentage-point gap between math teachers鈥� expectations for white and Asian-American students, which Cherng attributed to the 鈥渕odel minority鈥� myth, in which Asians are expected to excel at school, especially in math. (A looked at how stereotypes of Asian-American students as top-performers could lower their own expectations.)
And those low expectations had an impact: 鈥淏ased on my analysis, teachers鈥� underestimating their students鈥� abilities actually causes students to have lower academic expectations of themselves, meaning that they expected they would complete less school,鈥� Cherng says in a statement.
Black students, especially, had lower expectations of themselves.
The study also examined students鈥� GPAs and found that teachers鈥� low expectations were linked with lower GPAs. However, that relationship was weaker (but still existed) for black students.
鈥淚t is possible that black students anticipate that their teachers think less of them and work harder in class to prove them wrong, hence the less negative effect on their GPAs. Challenging teacher underestimations may be unique to black students, who have a long history of resisting discrimination within schools,鈥� Cherng continued. 鈥淩egardless, teacher underestimations are harmful to black youth.鈥�
A John Hopkins University study last year white teachers鈥攚ho comprise 82 percent of the profession鈥攁re less likely to expect academic success with black students, especially black boys. And a 2010 Georgia Southern University study found that 342 students reported that they had experienced a type of microaggression, such as a teacher assuming a black student was poor or acting surprised when a student of color was articulate, at least once during high school. (For more on how microaggressions can hurt students鈥� learning, see this 2015 Education Week story.)
Cherng recommends that teacher-preparation programs or professional development should address these biases. My colleague Brenda Iasevoli recently wrote that teaches teachers how to discuss issues of race and equity in the classroom. found that when prospective teachers have a semester of immersive practice in a diverse classroom, they feel more confident teaching students of different backgrounds.