Variation in Teachers' Evaluations of Students' Academic Effort, by School Racial Composition and Teacher's Race, at the Secondary and Elementary Levels

• Main Author: Kim, Jeannie
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01.01.2017
• Subjects: Educational sociology; Elementary education; Secondary education
• ISBN: 9780355407280; 0355407280

Research that has explored racial differences in education has looked mostly at the black/white or Hispanic/white achievement gaps. Lack of interest as well as a lack of sample representation has precluded the consideration of Asian students in a more nuanced analysis of racial inequality in education. As a result, fewer studies have sought to operationalize critical race theory or have been able to consider more complex racial variance in educational achievement. The following study is an investigation of how racial compositions of schools as well as racial matches between teachers and students relate to teachers’ evaluations of student academic effort and how those evaluations vary by student race, subject matter and education level. By capitalizing on the complex survey design of the Educational Longitudinal Study 2002 (ELS:2002) and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 (ECLS-K) and their unique oversampling of Latino and Asian populations, this study asks the following questions: Does the racial composition of schools influence teachers’ evaluations of students’ academic effort and does this relationship vary by students’ race? How does the relationship between racial match and teachers’ evaluations vary by race, and is this relationship sensitive to the racial compositions of schools? Are these relationships different for Math and English evaluations? And are patterns the same at the primary and secondary levels? Findings suggest that Asian student populations in high schools relate to racial variation in teachers’ evaluations differently by subject. Majority Asian schools are negatively related to Math evaluations for black students and negatively related to English evaluations for Hispanic students. Findings also suggest that whereas teacher/student racial match is related to more positive evaluations for Black and Hispanic students, racial non-match is related to more positive evaluations for Asian students in both Math and English. Whereas Asian students complicate the racialized patterns of evaluation at the secondary level, evaluations at the elementary level show greater patterns of differences in teachers’ evaluations for black and Hispanic students than for Asian students. It is important to consider how teachers mediate the influence of school composition in terms of how composition relates to the ways teachers evaluate their students.