Teacher Beliefs About Race and Culture

• In Event: 16.038 - Shifting Policy Approaches to "Safe" Schooling: Preparing Preservice Teachers to Understand and Address Systemic Marginalizations

Abstract

Objectives or Purposes
The Brown v. Board decision set forth an important integration project – the integration of White practitioners with Black, Latino and Native American students. Since 1954, the proportion of White females teaching Black, Latino and Native American students has increased; from 2004 to 2011 the rate of White teachers has stayed consistent from 83.1% to 81.9% respectively, and from 69% to 84% female between 1986 to 2011 (NCES, 2004-2011). In a survey on social networks (Public Religion Research Institute, 2014), among a sample of 4,000 individuals, the social networks of White Americans is 91% White, while 83% among Blacks, and 64% among Hispanics. The combination of these patterns suggests that Black and Latino students are likely to attend schools with a predominantly White and female population that has a limited lived experience of societal integration.

Perspectives or Theory Framework
As a conceptual frame, this study draws from reproduction theories as its analytical framework for situating the relevance of practitioner ideologies as not an individually-based phenomenon, but rather continually reproduced representations of dominant ideologies regarding race, culture, poverty, and cultural difference (Althusser, 1971; Anyon, 1983; Bourdieu, 1977; Giroux, 1983). These ideologies include ideas such as nationalism, educational opportunity, meritocracy, and achievement ideology.

Methods and Analysis
This paper is based on surveys conducted in 2012-13 with practitioners in three school districts in the Northeast. The survey contains various measures focused on practitioners’ perceptions of various educational practices and beliefs about race, culture, poverty, and difference (including, educational expectations, perceptions of race and culture, and teacher self-efficacy). Several analyses including a descriptive analysis of participants, an ANOVA was conducted to determine whether statistically significant differences, an inferential analysis of correlations of beliefs.

Findings
There is a negative moderate relationship between pedagogical confidence and deficit thinking (r = -.292; p < .01); i.e., more pedagogical confidence correlated with less deficit thinking. This finding suggests teachers who are more confident about their pedagogical capacity also do not place blame on students of color for achievement patterns. Deficit thinking had a negative moderate correlation with cultural responsibility (r = -.405; p < .01) and cultural awareness and knowledge (r = -.498; p < .01); i.e., as deficit thinking increased, cultural responsibility and cultural awareness and knowledge decreased. This finding suggests the notion that teachers’ blaming of students (i.e., deficit thinking) correlates with limited beliefs of cultural responsibility and awareness of others. These patterns do not imply causality; however, the relationship between these belief areas raises further research questions.

Scholarly Significance
This paper attempts to begin outlining some terrain for exploring the beliefs in school settings, specifically, that teacher ideologies and beliefs about the student population they serve can have a positive or negative effect on the student outcomes via the actions and behaviors teachers choose to employ in the classroom (e.g., Madon, et.al., 1997; Madon, 1998, et.al.; Madon, et.al., 2001; Proctor, 1984).

Author

• Edward Fergus, Temple University