According to a recent University of California (USC) study, both white teachers and teachers of color bias' devalue the math skills of both female students and students of color in comparison with their male and white peers.
While the teachers evaluated the students equally in regard to racial and gender criteria, they tended to assume that girls - and in particular girls of colors - had worse math capacities than male and white students. In fact, the lowest-rated group was always girls of color.
The USC research also found that students with white-sounding names were rated better by both white teachers and teachers of color than students with black- and Hispanic- sounding names. Female teachers themselves tended to consider boys as more capable than girls in mathematics.
The big problem is that “Students’ perceptions of their academic ability are developed based on the messages they receive from their social environment, especially those of their teachers and parents,” wrote the authors.
Picture: A dad and his daughter counting on fingers (Arcanys Early Learning Foundation)
