High Expectations for All: Goal-Setting and Deservingness in the Formation of Teacher Expectations

• In Event: Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: Considering Formations of Opportunity, Deservingness, and Unearned Advantage

Abstract

Equitable education depends upon teachers forming high expectations for marginalized students. To explore the ways in which such expectations may or may not come about, this theoretical paper brings together two traditions that ordinarily exist in separate research communities: the work motivation theory of goal setting and the social psychology of status and deservingness. The two traditions together suggest that the impetus for high expectations, and its attendant inclusionary practices, may stem from two sources: system or organizational goal setting made compelling with incentives, and cultural assumptions about deservingness of marginalized student groups. The paper examines these two sources of high expectations in light of the evidence about the efforts to improve equitable conditions in schools.

Authors

• Rick Mintrop, University of California - Berkeley

• Elizabeth Zumpe, University of California - Berkeley