ScienceDaily, from the Journal of Educational Psychology (h/t SOBL):
Minority students in the U.S. might have fewer of those teachers [who challenge their students], at least compared to white students, and as a result they might be at a significant learning disadvantage.
A major study, led by Rutgers-Newark psychology professor Kent D. Harber, indicates that public school teachers under-challenge minority students by providing them more positive feedback than they give to white students, for work of equal merit.
I’ve seen it mentioned, though I don’t have a research citation, that black teens display higher self-esteem on average than teens of other races. This is pretty readily observed. Black kids seem to be pretty happy-go-lucky. And I think most of us who can remember junior high and high school will remember that black classmates were relatively popular.
Even the various attacks that have been documented in the media show young blacks who aren’t hostile towards the world as much as they are just engaging in a bit of fun that happens to be violent. Even then they are insulated from the full consequences of their actions on the grounds that they are juveniles.
How debilitating, then, when these kids do face the real world. They leave the schoolhouse and adolescent bubble where they were protected from “real talk”, criticism, and punishment. Their esteem is essentially subsidized through their school years. A bubble inflated and then popped.
Teachers read and commented on a poorly written essay which they believed was composed by a student in a writing class. Some teachers thought the student was black, some thought the student was Latino, and some thought that the student was white. Teachers believed that their feedback would be sent directly to the student, in order to see how the student would benefit from their comments and advice.
In fact, there was no actual student, and the poorly written essay was developed by Harber and his team. The real purpose was to see how teachers would respond to subpar work due to the race of the student who composed it. As Harber and his team predicted, the teachers displayed a “positive feedback bias,” providing more praise and less criticism if they thought the essay was written by a minority student than by a white student.
I wonder how the Black studies departments will grapple with this one.
Like this:
Like Loading...
If the teachers were to “challenge” their black kis, would it be seen as “racism”? If the black students failed the challenge, would that be “racism”?
High self esteem is a problem for a lot of American kids. Black kids are just more susceptible to it. It’s one of the reasons everyone would rather hire foreign workers to American teenagers.
I’m going to assume that, yet again, their definition of “minority” doesn’t include Asians.
Asian kids have lower self esteem so they work harder. In Asia, kids get praised for effort more than natural ability.
Responses will probably run the gamut from denial to accusing the authors of Racism.
Right, right. If you discipline blacks and criticize them, you’re racist. If you are easy on them, you are also racist. Now we’re getting the picture. No matter what you do, you are racist.
“I wonder how the Black studies departments will grapple with this one.”
It will somehow, some way, be attributed to racism or white privilege. Because any discipline that makes race or ethnicity the sole subject of it’s focus ends up turning more into a mythology or religion rather than an actual objective field of study. WN’s, Zionists, Afrocentrists, all have the same problem… they all end up sounding crazy. Note this also applies to Women’s Studies and “Queer Theory” (whatever the fuck that is). For the black studies types whites are the final existential dumping ground for the world’s woes. You are not to challenge this, for that would also be racist.
“Their esteem is essentially subsidized through their school years. A bubble inflated and then popped.”
I wouldn’t be so sure about that. I’d guess a lot of them don’t get disciplined as much at work either. And even things that are supposed to be colorblind are made easier so fewer blacks fail. E.g. I think several states have made their bar exams easier over the past few decades when they realized how high the failure rate was among black exam takers.
Remember guys, some minoritys are so cottled that simply expecting them to show up on time and prepared is racist…. wasnt it called forward time orientation or some such.
I posted this on an earlier thread but that one seems to have gone dead and it’s even more appropriate here.
I think that lots of profs in lots of courses after the introductory huge ones, or in freshmen seminars, consciously or subconsciously give black students better grades than they deserve, through a thought process that goes something like, “well she did better than I expected and quite well really, considering” … Or, “well I don’t want to be too discouraging or seem racist so the lowest grade I’ll give a black even one who obviously hasn’t done the reading or didn’t understand it at all won’t be any lower than a C, though I’d like to not go lover than a B if I can somehow justify that to myself” … “well that would be less discouraging, wouldn’t it?”
In my experiences in over 25 years of working in several organizations, the schoolhouse “bubble” and protection from criticism simply continues into adulthood and the workplace.
‘Race and self-esteem: meta-analyses comparing whites, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and American Indians’.
I believe the movie “Remember the Titans” dealt with this issue when the white HC was demoted, he treated the black RB with kid gloves. Denzel Washington counseled the white HC that this was unacceptable.
My takeaway is we just need Denzel Washington in every school to remind (white) teachers that they shouldn’t treat races more favorably because they are perceived as disadvantaged.
“An important aspect of the positive bias was that it depended on how much social support teachers received from their fellow teachers and administrators — but only if the student was black. In This case, teachers lacking social support showed the positive bias, while those who enjoyed support did not show the bias.”
If the teacher doesn’t fear being declared a political non-person they do their job correctly. Film at eleven.