Biased career choices? It depends what you believe: Trainee teachers’ aversions to working in low-income schools are moderated by beliefs about inequality, meritocracy, and growth mindsets

Abstract

Schools serving diverse and low-income communities tend to have disproportionately high numbers of low-quality or inexperienced teachers, thereby creating an inequality of access to high-quality teaching. Across two pre-registered experiments and one exploratory survey (N_total = 956), we investigated the factors associated with trainee teachers’ bias in school choices, and the role of teacher education in mitigating this issue. In Studies 1 and 3, trainee teachers demonstrated a preference for working in a school with average (vs. diverse/low-income) demographics, even though all other aspects of the school were equal. These disparities were most pronounced when trainees more strongly believed that (a) educational inequality can be attributed to external factors; (b) intelligence is fixed, and (c) schooling is truly meritocratic. Study 2 revealed that levels of equity-related input during initial teacher education vary hugely, but that, where implemented, it may better prepare trainees for the challenges associated with teaching in diverse and low-income communities. Finally, Study 3 revealed tentative evidence to suggest that a brief intervention that challenges teachers to think beyond the internal causes of inequality could reduce some of these troubling disparities.