teachers' racial bias

​Preservice elementary school teachers are biased in their appraisal of pupils’ emotions and behavior.

A team of researcher recently conducted a double study on 40 American preservice elementary school teachers (75% female, mostly White). In the first task, participants had to label the emotion displayed by White and Black adults in different ambiguous vignettes.

In the second task, they had to rate (out of 5) the hostility displayed by children interacting with an antagonist and displaying intentional or unintentional harmful behaviors.

Results showed that, despite their classroom experience and diversity training, participants were 4 times more likely to mislabel male Blacks as being angry, and rated Black children as being 60% more hostile than their White peers in similar situations.

Source: Halberstadt et alia (2018)