Psychology in Schools

By Lee Drutman

According to recent studies, an African-American student is three times more likely than a white student to be placed in special education, 3.2 times less likely to be placed in a gifted class, and twice as likely to be suspended or punished.

Psychology graduate students Anne Gregory and Michael Strambler, along with Psychology professor Rhona Weinstein, have a theory about why this continues to happen: self-fulfilling prophecies. According to their research, this marked achievement gap is due, at least in good part, to expectations. Put simply, teachers convey different expectations to minority and non-minority students, and students respond to these cues, filling the roles expected of them. As minority students progress through schools, a vicious cycle of expectations and responses to expectations keeps them from achieving.

Recently, Gregory, Strambler, and Weinstein argued this theory in an 10 The Berkeley Graduate article in American Psychologist entitled, “Intractable Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education.” “As seen through ecological theory,” they write,“complex, multilayered, and interactive negative self-fulfilling prophecies create or perpetuate educational inequities and unequal outcomes. Society has failed to grapple with its entrenched roots in the
achievement culture of schools.”

“The point we make,” explains Professor Weinstein, “is that little about schools has changed as a result of the Brown decision except for change in demographics.The achievement culture did not change, nor did the way we instructed kids who came to schools with different life experiences,
different cultural beliefs, different readinesses for learning. We never had classrooms of equal status, and this article speaks to what kinds of teaching practices and school climate changes are going to be critical to give all children an equal chance to learn.”

Most of the current thinking on the subject tends to focus on the individual and ignore the context. But this trio of psychologists argues that context is crucial in explaining the achievement gap. Even such seemingly subtle factors as the expectations that teachers convey can have profound implications.

In order to demonstrate this, both Gregory and Strambler went into local high schools and conducted separate sets of observations and interviews.

Anne focused on what she calls “the discipline gap”-that is, that African Americans are the most overrepresented group in defiance referrals (referrals where a student challenges an authority figure). To figure out what was really going on, she studied 33 students who had been kicked out
of class for defiance and had been suspended.Then she conducted interviews with the student, the “referring teacher” who had kicked them out of class, and a “nominated teacher,” the teacher each disciplined student picked to speak positively on his or her behalf.

Anne found that the referring teachers said the students had poor attendance, low grades, and were not cooperative. But the nominating teachers found the students cooperative, attending class more often, and getting higher grades.The students themselves, meanwhile, perceived themselves as less cooperative and conscious of the power struggles in the classes with the referring teachers.

Among the referring and nominating teachers, there was no pattern across race or gender. “But what they did differ on,” Gregory says,“was a really important construct: Degree to which the teacher trusted the student. They also differed on their warmth or caring. And the students perceived that warmth and caring.” “There was also an expectancy piece,” adds Gregory. “If teachers are communicating expectations for behavior, especially for African Americans, they are going to be particularly sensitive on picking up on cues around being treated unfairly.
Teachers who exhibit warmth and really get to know students and hold higher expectations are doing the best in keeping the kids in class and keeping them cooperative.”

All told, Gregory transcribed 75 interviews totaling about 60 hours, on which she will base her dissertation.

“Her dissertation research is critical in demonstrating that the defiance these children might show to authority figures and teachers is context dependent,” says Professor Weinstein. “Her research has implication for training teachers and thinking about a school culture where discipline excludes students from education.”

Strambler's research focused on a parent-initiated program for minority ninth graders who were underachieving in school.The program provided extra help and extra support for the students. Strambler evaluated the program, getting data and conducting interviews with students, parents, and teachers.The program, however, only lasted one semester and a summer.

“What I found was that the supports provided for the program, such as extra help and better relations between students and teachers, benefited the students during the first semester,” Strambler says.“The students increased their grades and their attendance.When the program was removed, students dropped their grades.”

Strambler found that the relationships were stronger and the expectations were higher in the program, all of which contributed to more achievement. This would seem to indicate that many of these underachieving students were perfectly capable of achieving when somebody took an interest in them and expected them to do well.

According to Professor Weinstein, Strambler's research “argues for the importance of more sustained intervention that has high expectations and all the supportive behaviors. Unfortunately, what happens under No Child Left Behind is that they've raised the standards and upped the ante for increased accountability, but they've not paid critical attention to ways of thinking about how to better meet the instructional needs of a diversity of students and to maintain high expectations.”

“As a culture, we believe that people either have intelligence or they don't, and these beliefs are also many times associated with group stereotypes, such as African Americans being less intelligent than whites,” explains Strambler. “Based on these beliefs, we do not provide those deemed as less capable with the same level of instruction as those who we believe are more able to learn. Ultimately, what we need to do to address this situation is to change our philosophy of teaching and learning to one that is more consistent with developing a student's potential.”