Inequality Regimes and Racialized Perceptions of Girls' Ability and Behavior

• In Event: Racialized and Gendered Constructions of Ability and Behavior

Abstract

Objectives
Teacher perceptions of students’ abilities and behaviors are shaped by student race and gender (Morris & Perry, 2017; Riegle-Crumb & Humphries, 2012; Irizarry 2015). Yet we know little about the mechanisms that moderate and mediate these biases, and our understanding prioritizes racial disparities among boys. I examine the role of school racial context in the racialization and gendering of students’ ability and behavior.

Theoretical Framework
Research on teachers’ perceptions and decisions about students often focuses on individual-level prejudice; yet teachers’ perceptions of students form in concrete meso-level contexts. Schools are sites of inequality regimes, or “loosely interrelated practices, processes, actions, and meanings that result in and maintain . . . inequalities within particular organizations” (Acker 2006, p. 443). School context structures how teachers view students as members of racial and gender categories, and how they expect members of those categories to behave and perform academically. Research reveals descriptive patterns of racial disparities in discipline and special education that vary by school context (e.g., Owens and McLanahan 2019; Fish 2019), yet the mechanisms of these interactions between the micro- and meso-levels are unclear.

Data and Methods
This mixed-methods project uses data from Wisconsin elementary schools with varying racial compositions from two studies:

Factorial vignette survey. This survey synthesized vignettes of fictional students from randomized variables: race, gender and academic/behavioral profiles. Two hundred sixty-three teachers read the vignettes and rated their likelihood of using different interventions. OLS regressions estimated the effect of student race on teachers’ ratings and moderation of race effects by racial composition.
Interviews. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 teachers and 70 parents. Transcriptions were coded using tools of constructivist grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006) and abductive analysis (Timmermans & Tavory, 2012).

Findings
Results indicate that, largely in schools with lower proportions of White students, girls’ academic challenges are largely unseen. When teachers were asked to identify students that need interventions or other academic supports, teachers did not identify girls. Rather, teachers emphasized girls’ ability to “compensate” with soft skills or argued that there was no need for girls to achieve grade-level standards. Parents of girls with academic challenges described needing high levels of advocacy to convince schools to provide interventions.
Instead of recognizing girls’ academic challenges, teachers focused on girls’ behavior as evidence that no further supports were needed, emphasizing stereotypical feminine behaviors such as “mothering” peers. Yet when Black and Latina girls violated behavioral expectations, teachers demonstrated high levels of concern, and were more likely to refer them for behavioral interventions.

Significance
The findings presented here corroborate evidence that Black girls experience harsh disciplinary treatment in school, particularly when they violate femininity norms (Zimmermann, 2018; Diamond & Lewis, 2019; Morris, 2007). Unless girls are seen as having behavioral challenges, their needs for academic support are largely unnoticed. Without intensive parent advocacy, girls are unlikely to receive interventions that would help them achieve their academic potential. Moreover, the findings suggest that majority-non-White contexts make race and gender to teachers’ perceptions of students.

Author

• Rachel Elizabeth Fish, New York University