A Pilot Study Exploring Education Majors' Reasoning About P-12 Classroom Disparities

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  In Virtual iPresentation Only: SIG-Accreditation, Assessment, and Program Evaluation in Education Preparation Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

P-12 schools are complex social institutions which invoke change or preserve and transmit the cultural elements of their surrounding contexts. Studies reveal that students’ success highly correlates with their teachers’ beliefs, behaviors, and teacher-student relationships. At a mid-sized, Midwestern U.S. university, we conducted a pilot study to explore education majors’ (graduate and undergraduate) growth mindset, essentialist conceptions, and their intrinsic and extrinsic explanations for academic social disparities. We share the results from our analyses of respondents' survey data and highlight the significance of our study findings concerning the essentialist thinking of education majors as it relates to teachers’ roles in the cultural reproduction, social reproduction, and upward mobility of students within increasingly diverse P-12 classrooms.

Authors

• Amber Janel Adgerson, University of North Dakota

• Emma Pitt, Northeastern University

• Rebecca Peretz-Lange, Vassar College

• John D. Coley, Northeastern University