The Role of Race, Ethnicity and Class in Teachers Perception - Research Proposal Example

? Literature review: The role of race, ethni and in teachers’ perception towards African American kids with special education University: Rationale for race The issue of racial discrimination has been contentious in the history of the United States. One of the sectors affected by racial discrimination is the education sector. The degree of perception by teachers from different races greatly affects the performance of students and disparity of performance by students from different races is eminent. For instance, the perception of white teachers towards African American kids tends to affect the performance of such students. On the other hand, the same case applies to the perception of African American teachers towards white students and the course is the same. According to Oates (2003), positive disposition of teachers towards students tends to yield good results on the performance of the students. However, in the history of the U.S, there has been a notion that the African Americans have academic inferiority and that they lack diligence to perform. In another dimension, such notions have rendered the African Americans a low self esteem motive that makes them have a negative attitude about themselves in regard to their academic performance. Generally, although the African American students have equal opportunities in classroom in public schools, their performance is greatly affected by the context of their race and teachers’ perception (Oates, 2003). Conversely, the general place of African Americans in the American society also plays a critical role in explaining why the students cannot perform well in class. For instance, the perception that African Americans cannot secure good jobs in the U.S greatly affect their class performance because there is no guarantee that even after completing their studies they would get employed. Focusing on kids with special needs, it is apparent that the issue of racial discrimination fuels. For instance, African American kids with special needs could be at higher risks of getting quality education compared to white kids with special needs. This is arguably true because special needs rages from the inability for such students to afford daily needs, physical disabilities, and other psychological needs. In this regard, the perception of teachers towards African American kids with special needs is that their parents are incapable of taking care of the kids and that is why they are in their current conditions. For instance, a kid who cannot afford three daily meals tends to lack capacity to contemplate what they are taught in class. Mostly, such a kid comes from African American families. In another dimension, the perception by teachers that African American kids cannot perform better than the white kids has also played a key role on the continued underperformance by the kids. In light of this, teachers tend to focus most of their attention to white kids. A study conducted by Neal, et al (2003), found out that white kids are accorded much attention that African American students. For instance, teachers concentrate on areas they did not understand more compared to when it is the African American kids that raise the issue of lack of contemplation. Dee (2006) pointed out that, teachers perceptions independently affect and influence academic performance via self-fulfilling beliefs and perceptual biases. In addition, if teachers are pleasant towards a certain student, they provide them with more effective and favorable instructions. The same case applies to situations where pleasant students portray poor problem solving skills, teachers guide them in a way that easily encourage them to develop good solving skills. This is centrally to situations where unpleasant students portray the same skills, teachers put little effort to encourage or correct them. In fact, Gay (2002) postulated that performance of students is in the mind of the teacher. They tend to evaluate students performance based on their perception about the students. In light of this, it is therefore, apparent that such perceptions renders wrong misconceptions and could lead to improper evaluation of the students by the teachers. For instance, if the teacher has a negative perception towards African American kids that they are subject to errors; it is highly likely that the teacher would view as simple error of such students to be a great deal. In fact, Weinstein, et al (2004) argued that, is such students happens to have the same error with favored students, the teacher may argue that the favored student might have been influenced by the unpleasant student. Rationale for ethnicity Apparently, it is believed that the issue of special education particularly for the Africa America children has been critical for a considerable period of time. In fact, African American has experienced high levels of inequality for the past one century (Chen & Weseley, 2011). At one time, the Supreme Court in the United States of America made a ruling pertaining to the segregation that was witnessed in public schools. As such, the court cautioned against the use of segregation in schools which particularly aimed the African American children. In addition, most of the African American that have been hit by the segregation are male students who do not have defined places in the special education class as they have always been perceived to belong to other children who are non African American. It is worth noting that students belonging to minority groups in the United States have in most case experienced difficulties in the education system. In fact, statistics have indicated that most the education systems and institutions have continuously disappointed African American students by allowing only quarter of the institution’s population to graduate from their education system (Chen & Weseley, 2011). For instance, the National Assessment of Education Progress in the United States have indicated that in the last two decades students with the origin of African America have generally performed lowery in terms of academic as compared to other students. Scholars associated to education in the United States have argued that the perception of teachers towards students’ performance is very crucial. As a result, expectations of teachers in regard to the actual achievement of the students could bring along a number of effects. According to them, (Monroe & Obidah, 2004) teachers who are said to have higher expectations for their students are argued to influence the IQ scores on the students. However, teachers with low expectations in regard to the performance of the students are highly likely to influence poor performance. Furthermore, scholars have argued that the perception of the teachers on such performances also referred to as ‘Pygmalion effect’ is said to cause discouragement to concerned students thus affecting their overall performance in school. In fact, the perception act more on the student’s psychology to make them feel that school is not meant for them. As a matter of fact, research done in the yester years have indicated that teachers mainly affiliated to public schools had low opinion toward the African American students. As such, the teachers in most cases laid more concentration on the non African American students since they believed they were more intelligent than the African American (Ancis, et al., 2000). Moreover, the study showed that teachers associated to preschool were given assessment based on Africa American and European Americans. In the assessment, the teachers were noted to have picked the European Americans as more intelligent as compared to African Americans. In another study, it was confirmed that most of the institutions that were American based concentrated more in working with European Americans as compared to African Americans. For this reason, numerous researchers found it convenient to hire individuals who were Europeans in nature as compared to those that were Africans in nature. For instance, researchers believed that African Americans would not be in a better position to spell English words correctly as compared to the Europeans (Harriman, 2005). Of importance to note is that, ethnicity played a huge part in suggesting that African American had less education pursuit as compared to non African Americans. At times, it was argued that African American had less intelligence because they were not attractive like their counterparts. For instance, teachers were known to criticize African American more during learning and as such would not give them room to respond and participate in class work like their counter parts. Apart from the negativity that had been held by the teachers in various institutions in the United States, it was obvious that African American had began getting used to the kind of treatment that they had received and as such, they stopped contending with the fact that European Americans were perceived to be far much better than them (Morris, 2005). In this regard, they thought that the European Americans would have smooth education encounters such as completing both high school and college and further gaining employment more easily than them. However, studies conducted on ethnicity revealed that the ethnicity of students both African Americans and non Africans did not have any effect on what teachers perceived the level of their education, as well as, their perceived future success (Lambert, et al. 2013). Special Needs It is worth noting that education been one of the importance basic requirements, there are more issues related that play huge role in ensuring that education is given equally even to those children who are perceived to face certain type of challenges even as they struggle to make it through education (Hughes & Kwok, 2007). Social circumstances In every education system, it is only obvious that the students concerned come from various social backgrounds. As such, it is professional for teachers to have a considerable amount of information on each student in order to understand them in the classroom and know how to handle them. As would be expected, most of the students who are African Americans in nature have varying social back grounds that greatly contribute to their performances. For instance, some of the African America student is from single parents and as such they social upbringing in relation to male counterparts particularly the teachers may tend to affect their class performance. To some extent, the issue of single parents is closely related to teenage pregnancies where female students engage themselves in sex during their college and as a result end up dropping out of school a situation that has been argued to be more common in African Americans as compared to their counter parts. Once, the students drops out of school, it becomes difficult to go back and the inadequate education no longer has impact in their lives. Additionally, such students have little or no support from parents or their homes making it impossible for them to view education as valuable to them as cost. Scholars have argued that education is facilitated by various issues and such, environment is key in ensuring that classroom is a comfortable place for every students. Psychological needs Numerous studies have indicated that young students regardless of their ethical backgrounds join elementary schools with much vigor to acquire knowledge. Never the less, as the student continue their education into secondary school, the urge for gaining more knowledge begins to reduce to the extent that they no longer see the essence of attending school. For instance, it is argued that African Americans are more vulnerable to dropping out of school as their age advances. For this reason, some psychiatrists have argued that educators must be keen in understanding the issues that affect their students (Hughes & Kwok, 2007). Basically, they are advised to come up with programs that would assist their students in dismissing the perceptions and ideologies that they are designed to get low grades in school and face discrimination from the teachers and other students. In the same way, the program should seek to encourage the students that are acceptable and can make it through education. Through such programs African American students are more encouraged to take control of their destiny as compared to their previous negative perceptions and ideologies. However, there is a need for the contribution of all stakeholders in order to help such students to succeed in education. Motivating students alone is not enough to enable them perform well. Teachers play a critical role in ensuring that the psychological needs of every student are met. Therefore, as Monroe & Obidah, (2004) noted, such programs should also entail training teachers to take consideration of the necessary attention required for students with special needs. For this to happen, they should be enlightened of the importance of shunning away from discrimination. They need to be positive towards such kids and always work towards encouraging them. The perception that kids with psychological needs cannot make it could end up affecting the self esteem required by the kids in order to perform well in class. Psychological needs mostly affect kids from African American families due to numerous ordeals that they face in life. This ranges from poverty, racial discrimination, and family/domestic conflicts to other social factors. Rationale for class It is apparent that majority of the African American people are in middle class. In this regard, the perception of teachers towards African American kids is not the same as the one towards the white kids. Due to disparity in many areas such as social and economic, many African American people find it difficult to climb the social ladder (Reynolds, 2010). The perception of teachers towards such kids holds the view that such kids do not require much attention as compared to white kids who most of them come from well up families. In fact, studies have documented that people from upper class tend to be accorded much attention and respect than those from middle and low class. Some parents from well up families can be able to afford some incentives to the teachers in order for them to take good care of their kids. This is especially so to kids with special needs. In this regard, parents from poor background are not in a position to provide such incentives in order for their kids to be accorded special attention. In light of this, when the perception of the teacher is focused on the recognition of the parents of the well up kids, who in this case come from whites, it is evident that African American kids have problems in catching up with their white counterparts. Leatherman (2007), noted that the biggest problem affecting kids from poor families is lack of confidence, which is highly based on the perceived weakness when they compare themselves with kids from well up families. Generally, most kids from upper class come to school with some degree of knowledge obtained from private and home based teachers hired by their parents before entering the school. The same perception by the kids is perceived by the teachers. Teachers have the belief that kids from upper class families have prior knowledge that places them at better positions of contemplating additional knowledge offered in school. Therefore, they spend little time with kids from poor backgrounds than those from upper class. Apparently, most of the poor kids come from African American families. In another dimension, it is also apparent that children from poor families have little regard to rules and regulations compared to kids from upper class (Dykes, 2008). This is arguably true because most poor parents rear their children in a permissive parenting style, where rules are not adhered to. In this regard, most African American kids find it difficult to catch up with those from upper class because they find it easy to follow rules given by teachers. On the same note, teachers tend to have negative attitude towards kids with bad behaviors. They presume that their parents ought to have taught them some manners before joining the school thus affecting their attention to the kids. On the other hand, kids from upper class are aware of the value of education and mostly tend to work hard in and highly motivated. They are proud of their status thus they have self esteem. Teachers tend to even motivate them and try to show them that they have a place in the American society in future. Conversely, the situation worsens when kids from poor families have special needs. Their self esteem is at its low point given that they not only come from poor families, but also have impairment that could block them from becoming successful in life (Dykes, 2008). Due to class disparity, the association of kids in school is as per class. Upper class kids tend to associate more with kids from upper class. The middle class and lower class kids on the other hand tend to associate and intermingle with their counterparts from the same class. When this happens, there tends to be a clear separation of classes that ends up affecting kids’ performance both socially and academically (Hughes & Kwok, 2007). This is arguably true because kids do not have an opportunity to socialize with other kids from other classes. Therefore, kids from upper class benefit more because they are exposed and more enlightened than middle class and lower class kids. This ends up influencing teachers’ perception in regard to class disposition. For instance, a group discussion of kids from upper class would receive more attention from teachers because of their ability to perform and understand different concepts compared to a group discussion of kids from middle and lower classes. In addition, it is apparent that kids from African American families have a special need of language acquisition. Many of them, English is not their first language. Therefore, they pose a great challenge to teachers in regard to teaching them fundamental of English compared to white kids whose first language is English. In light of this, the perception by teachers that African American kids do not understand English becomes a critical issue in that the teachers find it nuisance to first teach them English as well as teach them the syllabus. With many deliberations on how race, ethnicity and class influence teacher’s perception towards African American kids with special needs, it is apparent that the positioning of these kids in the society greatly dictates teachers’ perception towards them, something that ends up affecting their academic performance. The other notable thing is that the notion by not only those who discriminate against African American people, but also by the African Americans themselves that they cannot perform well academically fuels their inability to perform and teachers negative perception towards them. In this regard, there is a need to have a comprehensive review of the education system and teachers evaluation in relation to how different kids from different races perform academically. References: Oates, G. (2003). Teacher-Student Racial Congruence, Teacher Perceptions, and Test Performance. Social science quarterly, 84 (3), 508-525. Hughes, J. & Kwok, O. (2007). Influence of Student–Teacher and Parent–Teacher Relationships on Lower Achieving Readers’ Engagement and Achievement in the Primary Grades. J Educ Psychol, 99(1): 39–51. Chen, B. & Weseley, A. (2011). The Effect of Student Ethnicity on Teacher Perceptions. Journal of research in education, 21 (2), 55-65. Dee, T. (2006). Teachers and gender gaps in student achievement. The journal of human resources, 42 (3), 528-554. Monroe, C. & Obidah, J. (2004). The influence of cultural synchronization on a teacher’s perceptions of disruption: a case study of an African American middle-school classroom. Journal of teacher education, 55 (3), 256-268. Ancis, J. et al. (2000). Student perception of campus cultural climate by race. Journal of counseling and development, 78 (2),180-185. Neal, L. et al. (2003). The Effects of African American Movement Styles on Teachers’ Perceptions and Reactions. The journal of special education, 37 (1), 49–57. Harriman, N. (2005). Perceptions of Students and Educators on the Impact of No Child Left Behind: Some Will and Some Won't. Rural spedal education quarterly, 24 (1), 64-69. Morris, E. (2005). From "Middle Class" to "Trailer Trash:" Teachers' Perceptions of White Students in a Predominately Minority School. Sociology of Education, 78 (2), 99-121. Gay, G. (2002). Culturally responsive teaching in special education for ethnically diverse students: setting the stage. Qualitative studies in education, 15 (6), 613-629. Leatherman, J. (2007). “I Just See All Children as Children”: Teachers’ Perceptions About Inclusion. The Qualitative Report, 12 (4), 594-611. Weinstein, C. et al. (2004). Toward a Conception of Culturally Responsive Classroom Management. Journal of Teacher Education, 55 (25), 25-38. Lambert, R. et al. (2013). Using teacher ratings to track the growth and development of young children using the teaching strategies gold assessment system. Early education and development, 24 (4), 574-595. Reynolds, R. (2010). “They think you’re lazy,” and Other Messages Black Parents Send Their Black Sons: An Exploration of Critical Race Theory in the Examination of Educational Outcomes for Black Males. Journal of African American males in education, 1 (2), 144- 163. Dykes, F. (2008). National Implications: Overrepresentation of African Americans in Special Education Programs in East Texas Elementary Schools: A Multi-Case Qualitative Study. National forum of special education journal, 19 (1), 1-16. Read More