Community-Level Racial Biases and Teacher Perceptions of Black Kindergarten Children's Behavioral Development

• In Event: Understanding and Promoting Black Children's Positive Development: Researchers Investigating Sociocultural Equity and Race Network

Abstract

Because racism operates across multiple systems, and individuals develop within nested and interactive interrelated systems, we must consider the influence that community-level racism has on a person’s behavior and perceptions, including teacher bias. Many studies assessing the influence of teacher bias on developmental outcomes are person-based analysis rather than situation-based, meaning they focus on teachers’ personal biases rather than the biases within the teachers’ environment. The “bias of crowds” theory sheds light on how implicit bias is a social phenomenon that passes through the minds of individuals but exists within the society we reside. Therefore, understanding the relationships between teachers’ perceptions of Black students and implicit and explicit forms of community-level racism is an important area of inquiry that could advance our understanding of how racial contexts fuel education disparities.



Utilizing data from multiple sources, we seek to examine whether differences in teacher ratings of Black children are exacerbated in areas with higher levels of community racism. Primary data are the combined 2006/2007 kindergarten samples of Black and White children (N = 3,950, M(age) = 5.85 (0.24) years; 48% female) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), including 22 teacher-reported socioemotional and behavioral items. ECLS-B data were merged with Project Implicit and Google Trends data to assess community racism. Project Implicit is an archive of volunteer measures of racial bias. The data include aggregated individual scores on the White/Black Implicit Association Test (IAT), which measures the strength of association between pairs of concepts/words using different groups of images or words displayed on the screen. The White/Black IAT indicates how strongly the respondent associates “African American” and “European American” with negative or positive valences. Because Project Implicit data relies on volunteers, selection bias is a concern. To mitigate this, we utilize Google Trends data to measure internet search patterns for keywords related to anti-Black racism, prejudice or bias. Google Trends is nationally representative and provides a measure of racism not captured on surveys. Research procedures were approved by the IRB at [NameBlinded].



Confirmatory factor analysis indicated three factors: interpersonal skills (e.g., ability to make friends), approaches to learning (e.g., ability to pay attention, work independently), and aggression (e.g., physical aggression, acting impulsively). Preliminary analyses suggest that Black boys received the lowest teacher ratings on interpersonal skills and approaches to learning but the highest teacher ratings on aggression. Black girls received lower teacher ratings on interpersonal skills and approaches to learning but higher ratings on aggression than White girls. Preliminary analyses of community racism demonstrate clear geographic patterns of anti-Black racism, and current analyses focus on how disparities in teacher ratings may differ across levels of community racism. Taken together, these findings suggest the importance of considering how community racism may be linked with discrepancy in teacher ratings. This work has implications for educational practice, specifically as it relates to family-school-community partnerships. Simply focusing on interventions within schools while neglecting to address the racism that exists within communities is inadequate if we are to move towards an anti-racist teaching framework.

Authors

• Nneka R. Ibekwe-Okafor, Boston University

• Jacqueline Sims, Boston University

• Fernando Andrade-Adaniya, HighScope Educational Research Foundation

• Stephanie Michelle Curenton, Boston University

• Sheniqua Jeffrey, Fordham University