Sociologists agree that education shapes the successful future life of students. Without knowledge, a person cannot get a well-paying job or make informed decisions in his/her daily life. Education sector of countries all over the world work round the clock to ensure that illiteracy gets diminished. Educated people are productive and boost the country’s economy as well as have raised standard of living. They use their knowledge and skills for innovation and development of industries and businesses thus create employment. Schools comprise a diverse community regarding gender, ethnicity, racial and social class. To a great extent, this diversity impacts the educational achievement of the students. This paper investigates how a teacher’s racial/ethnic identity affects student-teacher interaction and educational performance.
Literature Review
Chang and Amy assert that racial stereotype undermines students from the minority group because it affects the way other students and teachers treat or judge them (91). Studies reveal that most teachers’ expectation of students’ achievements is on the students’ race or ethnicity. Some researches show that most white teachers expect lower performance from black students and are greatly disappointed when a white student fails to achieve the recommended grades. According to a study by Egalite et al., students from a minority background perform best in subjects taught by black teachers because they can identify with them (44). The same survey showed that most white students performed poorly in those subjects taught by African American teachers or even failed to attend. Most of them held the perception that the black teachers were not qualified enough or did not have the skills needed. In another study, the students from the Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, and African Americans claimed that to achieve better grades or even out-perform the white students they have to work twice or thrice as much (Gershenson et al. 209). They also reported that the teachers were lenient to the white students and gave them higher marks as compared to the minority student. Such acts make them lose reading and learning morale.
In students’ academic performance, motivation is critical (Howard 204). The climate of the school, family background of the teachers and the students, their social values, and their perception all determine the students’ motivation (Chang et al. 409). Studies show that some of the minority students fail to perform due to lack of motivation brought about by the kind of stereotype and biases they receive from their fellow white students as well as the white teachers (Cherng, Hua-Yu Sebastian and Halpin 409). Most studies reveal that the minority students are as bright academically as the white students (Egalite et al., 46). However, not all minority students experience an adverse impact due to discrimination in school; some take it as a driving force to study hard. Howard asserts that most of the minority students understand that education is the primary way to get them out of poverty and the low life they live (263). Some, therefore, work hard despite racial/ethnicity discrimination practiced by the white teachers, students, and community. Racial/ethnic partiality is deeply rooted and has its origin from as far as during the slave trade and slavery, and inherited through generations. Most white students have grown up thinking that the minority are less intelligent and incapable of achieving anything. White children with such a mentality will have a discriminative mind towards the minority in school even as teachers. On that note, Chang et al. believe that it will take hard work to end teacher-student racial/ethnicity discrimination in schools and the minority students will continue suffering poor performance as a result (91).
Coleman argues that majority of the minority students hold a discriminatory mindset where they believe that the whites discriminate them (24). With such a mindset, whatever the teacher does is perceived as partiality even when it is not. Such African American students tend to perform better only on subjects taught by teachers from the minority group. Coleman believes that students whose ancestors got subjected to slavery have a generational perception that the whites are ruthless people (63). With such a mentality, the minority students will always find faults in white students and teachers and hence hurt their academic achievement.
Gershenson et al. in their study reveal that students from the minority group have to bear a lot of humiliation from their teachers who do not believe in them and therefore during a class discussion the correct answer has to come from a white student (211). In one of their study, Gershenson et al. said that the participants from the minority group claimed that a particular teacher asks questions and if the first to get the answer is a black student he has to ask a student from the white community to hear the same answer which is quite demoralizing. They claimed that they stopped answering any of his questions so he could get a correct answer from a white student. Such acts in most learning institutions have resulted in a gap in academic performance between the minority students and the white students. Sociologists have conducted many investigations and analyzed the effect of teachers’ racial background on the performance of students which points out that even in schools where the practice of partiality is highly discouraged there are acts of discrimination that go unreported (Jordan 338).
Researches reveal that schools where minority students are dominant, the white students tend to underperform even if most of the teachers are whites and the minority students perform excellently. They also reveal that in schools where the white students are the majority, they achieve better results than the minority students. These researches, however, do not give reasons for such effects.
I will conduct my research in a school where the number of the minority is lower than that of the white students. It will seek to establish why teachers greatly favor students from their racial/ethnic background and what can be done to ensure acts of discrimination are diminished in schools to enhance academic performance for the minority students. At the end of this study, I hope to observe the positive and negative impacts of the teachers and students’ shared cultural capital qualitatively. I aim to establish whether the student's test scores have any association with the racial or ethnicity of the teacher. I will try to unearth factors that negatively affect the students’ motivation.
Research Methodology
The researches as mentioned above shows that there is a gap in performance of students from the minority and the whites that results from the school environmental learning climate due to discriminatory acts from teachers that psychologically affects students hence poor grades. However, discrimination seems to happen where research shows that most white students relate and team up with other white students and the same happens with the minority group. These researches also show that the perception of students and teachers on particular race/ethnicity is the result of the low academic performance in the minority students. My study aims at establishing the root cause of the favoritism given to the white students by the white teachers and the discrimination directed the minority students. My research will examine the African American high school students’ performance and whether it has any association with the relationship with the teachers from other race/ethnicity. According to prior studies, African American students were the most affected by the interaction with teachers of different race/ethnicity. This study matters because according to numerous researches, the students who perform excellently in high school have high prospects. On completion of my investigation, I will prove that teacher-student racial/ethnic matching promotes excellent academic performance. It is likely that this research will confirm the importance of cultural capital shared between teachers and students.
I will spend around a year at Skyline high schools which has a slightly lower number of African American students. It also has teachers from different race and ethnicity. I will observe the peer interactions between students as well as that of teacher-students from the same race or ethnicity. For example, I will check to see if the teacher freely and in a friendly manner talks to the students from his/her race/ethnicity than he/she does with students from different race/ethnicity. The classes I will spend much of my time with are the 10th and 11th grade because this is where much concentration is needed to achieve excellent results that facilitate college entry. The 10 teachers under the study will be selected through simple random sampling. I will observe both verbal and non-verbal communication and interaction between students and teachers under the investigation. For example, I will note the student each teacher prefers asking question or picking answers. Is the student from his race/ethnicity? What factors other than race/ethnicity contributes to the student being the most preferred? I will also investigate teacher’s attitude towards minority/white in such lessons such as when they teach about slavery and slave trade as well as when they teach about developing countries such as those in Africa and Asia. If the teacher will have a negative attitude towards the blacks while teaching about them such as looking at them as inferior, hopeless or unintelligent people, it means that that is the attitude he/she has towards the African Americans or the minority in general. Some studies had revealed that some Black teachers have a mentality that the whites are superior people and the minority individuals are inferior. Such teachers will unconsciously tend to believe that the white students must have ready answers to every question. I will also observe such attitudes from African American teachers.
In another study, the students from the white community thought that African American teachers were not qualified enough to teach them. I will observe the attitude of students towards their teachers. For example, I will check whether at the end of the year the attendance record shows that white students missed most of the lessons conducted by African American teachers as compared to those of the white teachers. I will also observe the concentration of the students while particular teachers are teaching. Are the students yawning, dozing or showing signs of boredom while a teacher from a different race/ethnicity is in class as compared to teachers from their race/ethnicity?
Besides the classroom teacher-student interaction, I will view their communication and interaction outside the classroom. I will observe if the African American teacher communicates informally and in a friendly manner with students from their race than they do with students from other racial backgrounds. Do these teachers spare time outside the classroom to advise students from their ethnic background than they do other scholars? I will also observe whether students from African American origin tend to seek advice from teachers from their race/ethnicity than they do from other teachers.
To further evaluate teachers' favoritism I will use simple random selection to select seven African American students and seven white students. Then I will ask the teachers to write me each student’s quarterly evaluation report. The teachers will write a report every four months. I will hold interviews with the students and the teachers that will serve to establish whether there is racial bias. Some of the open-ended questions will include: Why is the performance of African American students lower than those of the white students? Which race/ethnicity according to your analysis for the period you have worked here, performs best? Answers to such questions will help me measure the level of racial/ethnic discrimination experienced in the school and its effect on the students’ performance. I will compare the evaluation of each student from every teacher and with test results.
Lastly, I will observe student’s peer interaction as well as their attitude towards their teachers and the entire school. I will also interview each one of them privately to know their level of motivation and whether their relationship with the teachers affects their motivation and their academic performance. Observing the students’ relationships with each other will highlight the impact of racial discrimination on academic achievement.
In conclusion, although it is not easy to know the impact of racial/ethnic biases on academic performance, my research will help future researchers understand that teacher-student racial/ethnic discrimination affects educational performance. The evaluation report from the teachers, the students’ interview, the teachers’ interview as well as the students’ end of term scores will clearly show the adverse effect of racial/ethnic prejudice and biases on students’ academic performance. It will also help learning institutions strategize on ways to curb racial/ethnic prejudice in schools.
Works Cited
Chang, Doris F., and Amy L. Demyan. "Teachers' stereotypes of Asian, Black, and White students." School Psychology Quarterly 22.2 (2007): 91.
Cherng, Hua-Yu Sebastian, and Peter F. Halpin. "The importance of minority teachers: Student perceptions of minority versus White teachers." Educational Researcher 45.7 (2016): 407-420.
Coleman, James S. Parents, their children, and schools. Routledge, 2018.
Egalite, Anna J., Brian Kisida, and Marcus A. Winters. "Representation in the classroom: The effect of own-race teachers on student achievement." Economics of Education Review 45 (2015): 44-52.
Gershenson, Seth, Stephen B. Holt, and Nicholas W. Papageorge. "Who believes in me? The effect of the student-teacher demographic match on teacher expectations." Economics of Education Review 52 (2016): 209-224.
Howard, Gary R. We can't teach what we don't know: White teachers, multiracial schools. Teachers College Press, 2016.
Jordan Irvine, Jacqueline. "Teacher communication patterns as related to the race and sex of the student." The Journal of Educational Research 78.6 (1985): 338-345.
