Managing Mismatch: Bridging the Gap or Stubbornly Standing Still

• In Event: 47.066 - Gap in Education

Abstract

This study aims to investigate how white, middle-class teachers in a low-income, minority school perceived their students’ cultures and backgrounds. Specifically, it examined how teachers identified and problematized racial and socioeconomic mismatch between themselves and their students. 27 teachers were interviewed and discussed their beliefs about their students and their resulting teaching strategies and perceived roles as teachers. They discussed behavioral, experiential, and academic mismatch between their own experiences and upbringings and those of their students. Several teachers characterized these misalignments as students’ own deficits and considered it their role to fill in these gaps. Multiple teachers shifted their role from instructor to surrogate parent as a result of their perception of substandard parenting, lowering their academic expectations for students.

Authors

• Crystal Diane Neill, University of Oklahoma

• Qian Wang, The University of Oklahoma

• Dionne Indera Cross Francis, Indiana University

• Alexandra Parsons, University of Oklahoma

• Laura A. Lewis, University of Oklahoma

• Ji Yeon Hong, University of Oklahoma