Rhona S. Weinstein

Teacher expectations, classroom context, and the achievement gap☆

In two independent datasets with 1872 elementary-aged children in 83 classrooms, Studies 1 and 2 examined the role of classroom context in moderating the relationship between child ethnicity and teacher expectations. For Study 1 overall and Study 2 mixed-grade classrooms, in ethnically diverse classrooms where students reported high levels of differential teacher treatment (PDT) towards high and low achieving students, teacher expectations of European American and Asian American students were between .75 and 1.00 standard deviations higher than teacher expectations of African American and Latino students with similar records of achievement. In highly diverse low-PDT classrooms in Study 1 and highly diverse low-PDT mixed-grade classrooms in Study 2, teachers held similar expectations for all students with similar records of achievement. Study 3 estimated the contribution of teacher expectations to the year-end ethnic achievement gap in high- and low-bias classrooms. In high-bias classrooms, teacher expectancy effects accounted for an average of .29 and up to .38 standard deviations of the year-end ethnic achievement gap.

The discipline gap and African Americans: defiance or cooperation in the high school classroom.

African Americans are over-represented in school suspensions, yet little is known about the underlying contributing dynamics. Study 1 reviewed a high schools annual discipline data and 442 students referred for defiance. African Americans were over-represented in referrals for defiance and most students received referrals from one or several teachers. This suggests that defiance referrals are specific to the classroom situation. Examining the situational specificity of referrals, Study 2 used repeated measures and multilevel modeling with a sub-sample of 30 African American students. Attendance, grades, and teacher reports showed that students behaved more defiantly and less cooperatively with teachers perceived as having untrustworthy authority. Predictors of African American student trust in teacher authority included teacher caring and high expectations, offering implications for lowering the discipline gap.

Classroom Factors Affecting Students’ Self-Evaluations: An Interactional Model

This paper presents a complex interactional model of classroom factors that contribute to the development of students’ self-evaluations. This model integrates previously investigated factors, suggests the operation of additional factors, and extends the notion of the operation of classroom factors to account for the possibility that certain factors may compensate for or negate the effect of otherwise crucial factors in influencing students’ interpretations of and reactions to classroom events. Described are (a) task structure, (b) grouping practices, (c) feedback and evaluation procedures and information about ability, (d) motivational strategies, (e) locus of responsibility for learning, and (f) the quality of teacher-student relationships. This notion of compensating and negating features within the classroom environment can be applied to understanding other student outcomes as they are influenced by teaching processes.

Classroom and developmental differences in a path model of teacher expectancy effects.

A path model of teacher expectancy effects was evaluated in a sample of 376 first- through fifth-grade urban elementary school children. The roles of two moderators (classroom perceived differential treatment environment and developmental differences) and one mediator (childrens self-expectations) of teacher expectancy effects on childrens year-end achievement were examined. Significant differences in effects and effect sizes are presented. Both classroom environment (high versus low in differential treatment, as seen through childrens eyes) and developmental differences moderated the strength of teacher expectancy effects. Generally, stronger effects were found in classrooms in which expectancy-related cues were more salient to children, but developmental differences moderated which effect was most pronounced. A significant age-related decline in direct effects on ending achievement was interpreted as evidence that teacher expectations may tend to magnify achievement differences in the early grades, but serve to sustain them in later grades. Support for indirect effects (teacher expectations --> childrens self-expectations --> ending achievement) was limited to upper elementary grade classrooms perceived as high in differential treatment. In contrast to prior research that emphasized small effect sizes, the present analyses document several instances of moderate effects, primarily in classrooms in which expectancy-related messages were most salient to children. These results underscore the importance of explicit attention to the inclusion of moderators, mediators, and multiple outcomes in efforts to understand teacher expectancy effects.

Connection and Regulation at Home and in School: Predicting Growth in Achievement for Adolescents.

Qualities of adolescent-adult relationships across home and school environments are examined as predictors of academic growth in mathematics. An ethnically diverse sample of adolescents was drawn from the National Educational Longitudinal Study, 1988. In separate analyses, adolescents’perceptions of (a) connection with parents and teachers and (b) regulation from parents and teachers uniquely predicted academic growth in math from 8th to 12th grade. Thus, assets across home and school were additive. No evidence supported a compensatory process in which less connection or regulation at home was compensated by the presence of these experiences in school. Within school, teacher connection was the strongest predictor for all adolescents, but a combination of connection and regulation, making up an authoritative teaching style, predicted even greater academic growth in math for adolescents from low socioeconomic backgrounds.

Pygmalion and the Student: Age and Classroom Differences in Children's Awareness of Teacher Expectations

This study explores age and classroom differences in childrens awareness of teacher expectations and in the relation between awareness and self-expectations. In a sample of 579 children and their teachers in 30 first- (6-7-year-olds), third- (8-9-year-olds), and fifth-grade (10-11-year-olds) classrooms, assessed in the fall, younger children were found to be less accurate than fifth graders in predicting teacher expectations and in reporting differential patterns in their own interactions with the teacher. Yet first graders identified classroom differences in the degree of differential teacher treatment toward high and low achievers that were associated with differences in the expectations that high and low teacher-expectancy students reported for themselves. Fifth graders appeared more likely than younger children to mirror teacher expectancies in their self-descriptions regardless of the degree of differential treatment reported in the classroom environment.

Turning around Reading Achievement: Predictors of High School Students' Academic Resilience.

In a national, longitudinal database, factors were examined that enabled public school students on a path toward failure to significantly improve reading achievement by high school graduation. Youths who faced the proximal risk of low achievement during the transition to high school were vulnerable to continued low achievement or failure; yet, a small number improved reading proficiency from failing the basic level to passing the intermediate or advanced levels. Being Caucasian, being female, having an internal locus of control, and taking an academic curriculum in high school independently predicted academic resilience. The role of student socioeconomic status in predicting resilience was explained by psychological and school environment variables. The path between locus of control and resilience was partly mediated by high school curriculum; the path between 8th-grade educational aspirations and resilience was fully mediated by curriculum.

Expectations and high school change: Teacher-researcher collaboration to prevent school failure

Describes the multilevel outcomes of a collaborative preventive intervention for ninth-graders at risk for school failure using qualitative and quasi-experimental methods. Teachers, administrators, and researchers implemented innovative practices communicating positive expectations for low-achieving adolescents in their transition to high school. Changes were made in the practices of curriculum, grouping, evaluation, motivation, student responsibility, and relationships (in the classroom, with parents, and in the school). Both implementation and evaluation evolved as a function of collaboration. Change was promising but not uniform. Project teachers became more positive about students and colleagues, expanded their roles, and changed school tracking policies. The 158 project students, in contrast to the 154 comparison students showed improved grades and disciplinary referrals post-intervention and increased retention in school 1 year later, but their absences rose and improved performance was not maintained. The implications of this analysis for school-based interventions and its evaluation are discussed.

Intractable self-fulfilling prophecies fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education.

The civil rights struggle for equal educational opportunity has yet to be achieved at the start of the 21st century. Inequality persists but problem and remedy are refrained from integrating schools, to ensuring equal access in resegregated settings, to closing the performance gap. As seen through ecological theory (R. S. Weinstein, 2002b), complex, multilayered, and interactive negative self-fulfilling prophecies create or perpetuate educational inequities and unequal outcomes. Society has failed to grapple with its entrenched roots in the achievement culture of schools. If this insidious dynamic is to be changed, an educational system that sorts for differentiated pathways must be replaced with one that develops the talents of all. Psychology has a critical role to play in promoting a new understanding of malleable human capabilities and optimal conditions for their nurturance in schooling.

Raising Expectations in Schooling: Obstacles and Opportunities for Change

Given the gap in research on applied expectancy interventions, this study examined perceived obstacles encountered by a collaborative team of teachers, administrators, and researchers in raising expectations for ninth graders at risk for failure in an inner city high school. Qualitative analysis of narrative records of team meetings over 2 years revealed perceived constraints emanating from deficits in students, pessimism about efficacy and fears about exposing vulnerability in teachers, and lack of support for collaborative action and for mixed-ability teaching in the school. Over time, collaboration enabled participants to challenge these beliefs, thereby opening the door for disconfirming evidence. Teachers took increasing responsibility for reframing obstacles so that positive changes were made in practices and policies that increased learning opportunities for students. The findings illustrate that preventive action must move beyond the teacher-student dyad to include an understanding of the context in which expectations for students, teachers, and schooling are embedded.