Bias in Primary School Teachers’ Expectations of Students? A Study of General and Specific Bias Towards SES, Ethnicity and Gender

Abstract

Based on teachers' knowledge base of students, teacher expectations of students' (future) abilities and potential are shaped, in which bias may occur. This study investigates data on multiple attributes of 535 sixth-grade Flemish students to find out (1) whether teacher expectations of students' cognitive and non-cognitive attributes, of teacher-student relationships, and of parental involvement in education are biased, and (2) whether teachers differ in their expectation bias towards SES, ethnicity, and gender. By means of correlation analysis, in which we compared teacher expectations with multiple measured student attributes (i.e., their achievement test scores and self-assessments), the results showed statistically significant, positive correlations for all the attributes included, indicating an overall correspondence between teacher expectations and students' measured attributes. At the same time, using an indicator of teacher expectation bias by subtracting the students' measured attributes from the corresponding teacher expectations, this study highlighted an expectation bias in terms of over- and underestimation by teachers, especially with respect to teachers' expectations of students cognitive attributes and parental involvement in education. Also, a specific bias in teacher expectations towards SES and gender was found.