Unseen Girls, Policed Girls: Race and School Context Shape Perceptions of Girls' Abilities and Behavior

• In Event: Racialized and Gendered Constructions of Ability and Behavior

Abstract

Objectives

Teacher perceptions of students’ abilities and behaviors are shaped by student race and gender (Morris & Perry, 2017; Riegle-Crumb & Humphries, 2012; Tenenbaum & Ruck, 2007). Yet we know little about the mechanisms that moderate and mediate these biases, and our understanding prioritizes racial disparities among boys. I examine the racialization of girls’ ability and behavior, and how that is shaped by school racial context.

Theoretical Framework

Regardless of teachers’ explicit beliefs, which range from equity-focused (Irizarry & Donaldson, 2012) to color-blind ideologies that mask racialized practices (Lewis, 2001), their perceptions of students are also shaped by implicit bias from cultural stereotypes (Fiske, 2002). Teachers rely on schemata, through which cultural stereotypes shape perceptions of students (DiMaggio, 1997). Yet research has not revealed how reliance on schemata varies across contexts.

Data and Methods

This mixed-methods project uses data from Wisconsin elementary schools with varying racial compositions from two studies:

1. Factorial vignette survey. This survey synthesized vignettes of fictional female students from randomized variables: race and academic/behavioral profiles. Two hundred sixty-three teachers read the vignettes and rated their likelihood of using different interventions. OLS regressions estimated the effect of student race on teachers’ ratings and moderation of race effects by racial composition.

2. Interviews. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 teachers and 70 parents. Transcriptions were coded using tools of constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) and abductive analysis (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012).

Findings

Results indicate that, largely in schools with lower proportions of White students, girls’ academic challenges are largely unseen, with no differences in how teachers perceived academic challenges by race. When teachers were asked to identify students that need interventions or other academic supports, teachers did not identify girls. Rather, teachers emphasized girls’ ability to “compensate” with soft skills or argued that there was no need for girls to achieve grade-level standards. Parents of girls with academic challenges described needing high levels of advocacy to convince schools to provide interventions.

Instead of recognizing girls’ academic challenges, teachers focused on girls’ behavior as evidence that no further supports were needed, emphasizing stereotypical feminine behaviors such as “mothering” peers. Yet when girls violated behavioral expectations, teachers demonstrated high levels of concern. The factorial vignette survey demonstrates that this is particularly for Black girls in schools with higher proportions of children of color, corroborated by teacher interviews showing increased attention to misbehavior by Black girls.

Significance

The findings presented here corroborate evidence that Black girls experience harsh disciplinary treatment in school, particularly when they violate femininity norms (Zimmermann, 2018; Diamond & Lewis, 2019; Morris, 2007). My findings demonstrate that unless girls are seen as having behavioral challenges, their needs for academic support are largely unnoticed. Without intensive parent advocacy, girls are unlikely to receive interventions that would help them achieve their academic potential. Moreover, the findings suggest that majority-non-White contexts are “schematic triggers” for the salience of racial and gender stereotypes to teachers’ perceptions of students.

Author

• Rachel Elizabeth Fish, New York University