Dive Brief:
- Education Week reports that social psychology experiments out of Stanford University show the impact of minor interventions that change teacher mindset and student impressions of being respected.
- One set of Stanford studies got to the heart of how teachers and students view respect, finding teachers feel respected when students cooperate and show compliance, but students feel respected when teachers remember their names and pronounce them correctly, don't embarrass them in front of their peers or impose punitive punishment, and express interest in their perspectives.
- In another experiment, teachers who participated in empathy training were less likely to suspend their students, especially black and Latino boys, and those students were more likely to report positive experiences in school overall, indicating empathy from one teacher can improve student interactions with other teachers, too.
Dive Insight:
Research consistently shows the large impact teachers have on student outcomes. But teacher bias can prevent students from reaching their full potential, especially for black and Latino students and boys. Boys and girls who show up to elementary school with similar behavioral problems end up in different places later in their educational careers, and Brown University researchers expect that is because teachers dole out harsher punishment to boys, who can be labeled troublemakers and then stereotyped in future interactions with teachers.
The same is generally true for black and Latino students. Teacher bias creeps into the way teachers perceive behavioral problems. Even as young as preschool, black students are 3.6 times more likely to be suspended than their white peers. And research shows black and Latino students are more likely to be suspended for minor incidents.