1-188 - Investigating and Ameliorating Teachers’ Racialized Perceptions and the Race Disparities in Students’ Schooling

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Black American students are about four times more likely than White American students to be suspended (Office of Civil Rights, 2016). Our interdisciplinary (psychology and education) symposium bridges research and practice regarding the ways in which teachers’ implicit racial biases shape students’ classroom experience and discipline practices, and how we can effect change. To do so, we include nation-wide big data, teacher- and school-wide analyses, and a case study intervention that is implemented in a large school district. The symposium begins with evidence from nationally representative data that county-level implicit bias predicts significant racial disparities between Black and White students discipline severity and teacher perceptions of students as troublemakers. The next presentation will demonstrate that teachers’ view Black students as significantly more disobedient than White students at a within-class level, and these racialized perceptions are associated with students’ experiences of racial discrimination. The last presentation will discuss findings from a research-based intervention that shows significant changes in reducing teachers’ implicit biases, changes in teachers’ implementation of culturally relevant pedagogy, and increases in teachers’ awareness of the implications racial biases has on Black boys’ development. Our discussant will highlight the implications of this work in generating future research and interventions in resolving the broader race equity challenges, while guiding discussion with the audience.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chair

• Kamilah Legette, UNC

Discussant

• Iheoma U Iruka, HighScope Educational Research Foundation

Individual Presentations

• County-level Bias Predicts Disciplinary Disparities in two Nationally Representative Datasets - Presenting Author: Shoshana Jarvis, Berkeley; Non-Presenting Author: Chrisite Ngo, University of California at Berkely; Non-Presenting Author: Jennifer Eberhardt, Standford University; Non-Presenting Author: Jason Okonofua, University of California, Berkeley

• Disobedience: Teachers’ Racialized Perceptions and Students’ Perceived Racial Discrimination - Presenting Author: Kamilah Legette, UNC; Non-Presenting Author: Amy Halberstadt, North Carolina State University; Non-Presenting Author: Elan Hope, North Carolina State University

• Addressing Equity in Early Childhood Education: A Culturally Responsive, Strength-based Approach - Presenting Author: Lisa Gordon, Bank Street College of Education