Poster #201 - Student Perceptions of Racial Bias in Policing: Comparing Policing Students to Race Students

• In Event: ASC Poster Session II

Abstract

Many factors are associated with student perceptions of the police, including race, gender, encounters with the police, and so forth (Senreich & Williams-Gray, 2021). Research shows the media plays an important role in these perceptions, with publicized incidents of excessive use of force and officer-involved shootings particularly influencing college students’ perceptions (Krieger et al., 2015). As educators, we want our students to understand that media sources omit contextual factors that are likely to skew their perceptions of racial bias in policing. As such, we created an assignment which incorporates QuantCrit methods to highlight the importance of context to statistical reporting on the state of race and policing in the U.S. This study has two main questions: (1) After learning about QuantCrit methods, how do students read and interpret statistics in a Pew Report on race and policing in the United States? (2) Are there differences in students’ interpretations by course type? We offer initial qualitative evidence to suggest that our assignment affects both policing and race students’ views, albeit in different ways

Authors

• Crystal Peoples, Randolph College

• Brooke Mathna, Longwood University