Youth Recognize that Teacher Ethnic Biases will be Viewed Unfavorably by their Peers

• In Event: Experiences of and Awareness of Social Inequalities and Status Hierarchies in Childhood

Abstract

Little research has been conducted on whether youth have an awareness of their peers’ reactions to teacher biases at school. Recognizing teacher ethnic biases enables youth to conceptualize unfair treatment as resulting from systemic biases rather than individual deficits (Diemer et al., 2021). In this study, youth were asked to make third-party evaluations about peers who were (and were not) recipients of teacher ethnic bias across two U.S. sites: Maryland and Hawaiʻi, which differ by history of ethnic diversity. Maryland participants included 275 students (nfemales = 147), low-middle income, between 8 to 14 years old (Mage = 11.18 years, SD = 1.95 years), and from White (40.7%), Multiracial (18.2%), Black (14.8%), Latinx (14.2%), Asian (5.5%), and other (4.7%) backgrounds. Hawai‘i participants included 147 students (nfemales = 76), low-middle income, between 8 to 14 years old (Mage = 11.29 years, SD = 1.32 years) from Multiracial (n = 59.9%), Asian (27.9%), Black (6.1%), Native Hawaiian (4.8%), and Pacific Islander (1.3%) backgrounds.

Participants were told that a teacher allocated high status leadership roles across one of three conditions: 1) unequal: only European American students, 2) unequal: only Latin American/Pacific Islander students, and 3) equal: equal number of students from each group. Participants were then told about two new students (one European American and one Latin American/Pacific Islander) and asked, “Do you think [new student] thinks it’s okay or not okay that the teacher picked [names of the selected students] to do the leadership duties?” Responses were recorded on a 6-point Likert-type scale from 1 (Really Not Okay) to 6 (Really Okay).

For students in Maryland, there was a significant interaction between participants’ expectations of European American and Latin American peers’ evaluations by condition, F(2, 261) = 45.100, p < .001, η_p^2 = .257, and by condition and age group, F(2, 262) = 3.636, p = .028, η_p^2 = .027. Overall, participants thought both peers would positively evaluate equal allocations. Participants also expected peers to more positively evaluate teachers’ leadership allocations when those allocations favored their ethnic ingroup than when the allocations favored their ethnic outgroup. Yet, they also expected the Latin American peer to differentiate between the allocations more than the European American peer, indicating these assessments may be motivated in part by status rather than simply ingroup membership. For Hawaiʻi, there was a significant interaction between participants’ expectations of European American and Pacific Islander peers’ evaluations by condition F(2, 137) = 4.800, p = .010, η_p^2 = .065. Overall, participants thought the Pacific Islander peer would more positively evaluate teachers’ leadership allocations when those allocations favored their ethnic ingroup than when they favored their ethnic outgroup. Students differentiated between the conditions and peers less than did the Maryland participants, supporting our hypothesis surrounding the unique ethnic context and history of this sample. The novel findings of this study were that children and adolescents expected that a peer who reflects the identity of an excluded group would view it as unfair which has the potential to motivate youth to correct social inequalities.

Authors

• Melanie A. Killen, University of Maryland - College Park
  Presenting Author

• Amanda Rose Burkholder, Furman University

• Elizabeth Brey, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

• Dylan Cooper, University of Maryland

• Kristin J.M.B. Pauker, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa