Racial Disparities and Discrimination in Education: What Do We know, how Do We Know It, and What Do We Need to Know?

By George Farkas. Teachers College Record, 2003

341 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper reviews what we have learned about racial discrepancies in education, with particular attention to those that might be attributable to discrimination. Empirical studies have found that, on average, African American, Latino, and American Indian children arrive at kindergarten or first grade with lower levels of oral language, prereading, and premathematics skills, as well as lesser general knowledge, than that possessed by White and Asian American children. African American, Latino, and American Indian children are also reported to display behaviors less well suited to the school's learning environment. It has been estimated that at least half, and probably more, of the Black-White gap in twelfth-grade academic achievement would be eliminated if we could eliminate the Black-White performance gap at school entry. The remainder of the performance gap occurs during grades one through twelve. It is here that researchers have looked for discrimination by teachers and school administrators. In particular, they have looked for curricular track placements that, adjusting for prior performance, are disadvantageous for ethnic minority students. They have also looked for the possibility that teachers hold lower expectations for, and are less encouraging to, minority students. The evidence on these matters is mixed. It is suggested that, with the cooperation of school administrators and teachers, district-specific studies of these issues might be undertaken, using both local administrative data and participant-observational methods.

Subfields: Education

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Citations in the corpus

A Teacher Like Me: A Review of the Effect of Student–Teacher Racial/Ethnic Matching on Teacher Perceptions of Students and Student Academic and Behavioral Outcomes (2019, background): “Compared to Black and Latino/a students, teachers hold more positive expectations of White students, direct more positive speech toward them, and are less likely to make negative referrals (Farkas, 2003; Ready & Wright, 2011; Tenenbaum & Ruck, 2007).”
Self-fulfilling prophecy: How teachers' attributions, expectations and stereotypes influence the learning opportunities afforded Aboriginal students (2012, background): “Researchers also suggest that teachers’ attributions and stereotypes may be a contributing factor when it comes to Aboriginal/minority drop-out rate in schools (Brandon, 2002; Farkas, 2003; Garcia, 2001; Riley & Ungerleider, 2008).”
Accuracy and Inaccuracy in Teachers’ Perceptions of Young Children’s Cognitive Abilities (2011, background): “…to special education and English as a Second Language programs are driven to some extent by teachers’ subjective understandings of their students’ cognitive abilities (Burkam, LoGerfo, Ready, & Lee, 2007; Entwisle, Alexander, & Olson, 1997; Farkas, 2003; Page, 1987; M. L. Smith & Shepard, 1988).”
The role of family socioeconomic resources in the black-white test score gap among young children (2006, background): “Ferguson’s (1998) review concluded that teacher’s lower expectations for black students are likely to account for a portion of the gap, and it seems possible that this inXuence may become increasingly important during the early school years (see also Farkas, 2003).”
Racial/ethnic discrimination and well-being during adolescence: A meta-analytic review (2018, neutral): “Moreover, adolescents who recognize their proximal contexts as hostile or unwelcoming are more likely to disengage with that environment (Benner, Crosnoe, & Eccles, 2015; Farkas, 2003).”
The Psychological and Academic Costs of School-Based Racial and Ethnic Microaggressions (2017, background): “Though much of the current attention is on microaggressions in college contexts, our findings suggest that more attention should be focused on racial stressors in primary and secondary schools (Benner & Graham, 2011; Farkas, 2003; Hope, Skoog, & Jagers, 2015).”
Gender differences in mathematics achievement: Exploring the early grades and the extremes (2008, background): “…factors such as track placement, teacher expectations, and student motivation, all of which place students on a trajectory of academic achievement (Farkas, 2003a).3 These findings suggest that if early gender differences in mathematics achievement do exist, they need to be considered…”
No more failures : ten steps to equity in education (2007, background): “Farkas (2003) estimated that initial differences may be roughly doubled by the end of the twelfth grade in the United States (see also Shavit and Blossfeld, 1993; Grubb, 2006).”
Experimental Evidence on Teachers’ Racial Bias in Student Evaluation: The Role of Grading Scales (2020, background): “Some teachers hold explicit racial stereotypes—or stereotypes they consciously endorse—which are liable to affect their treatment of racially minoritized students (e.g., Farkas, 2003; Quinn, 2017).”
Does Mathematics Remediation Work?: A Comparative Analysis of Academic Attainment among Community College Students (2008, background): “The underlying reasons for this association are debatable, as a student’s math grade is a product of a number of factors, including prior math preparation and the degree of effort applied to the topic by the student (Farkas 2003).”