Conference Agenda

The growing heterogeneity in classrooms is important in order to include all pupils (United Nations, 2006), but may be challenging for teachers: For instance, teachers need to assess the heterogeneous learning prerequisites of their students to make pedagogical and didactic choices, all while monitoring ongoing learning progress in their day-to-day teaching activities (Helmke & Weinert, 2021). Especially when teachers’ motivation and cognitive resources are low, teachers’ biases may come into play more frequently. Research confirms this and shows that teachers tend to use more heuristic judgement processes in these kinds of situations (Krolak-Schwerdt et al., 2013, 2018).

However, not all pupils are the same; some pupils are more at risk than others when it comes to teachers’ possible biases. Empirical evidence suggests that pupils with special educational needs and pupils with different ethnicities are often subject to biased teacher judgements (Glock et al., 2020). It is therefore crucial to look especially at those groups of pupils in order to examine possible mechanisms as a first step towards a more equitable and inclusive classroom. Thus, this symposium aims to contribute to the understanding of teachers’ perceptions, biases and expectations from an international perspective. To this end, the various contributions address questions that focus on the content of teacher biases as well as on the effects of these biases on teacher behavior:

In the first study from Luxembourg by Pit-ten Cate & Krischler, the focus is on teacher’s warmth and competence expectations and emotions concerning students with special educational needs. It investigates how these expectations and emotions vary based on specific special educational needs characteristics, namely learning difficulties and challenging behaviour. Results show differences between in-service and pre-service teachers when it comes to warmth and competence as well as between different special educational needs when it comes to teachers’ emotions.

The second study from Germany by Glock et al. explores the impact of social behaviour information on pre-service teachers' judgments and feelings of resignation. Pre-service teachers were presented with vignettes on pupils’ social behaviour, either positive or negative, and judged these pupils’ academic performance and learning behaviour. Results show that information, especially unusual negative information, biases the judgement.

The third study from the United States by Garcia Coppersmith et al. shifts the focus to racial-ethnic biases in teacher’ responses to pupils’ novel ideas in a mathematics lesson. By assessing how teachers react to online scenarios with pupils of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, the study shows that teachers found the same math task to be more difficult for Black and Latinx/e pupils. Furthermore, teachers’ language was biased as a function of the students’ race/ethnicity, for example in the topics the teachers discussed with the student.

The fourth study from Germany by Schell et al. adds another layer to the understanding of (future) teachers’ biases by examining stereotypes among pre-service teachers in the context of inclusion. Focusing on autistic pupils and pupils with Down syndrome, the research investigates the relationships between pre-service teachers' stereotypes, diagnostic processes, and decisions using an online simulation. This study aims to uncover how stereotypes may affect the inclusion of students with special educational needs in educational settings. Preliminary results show the existence of stereotypes as well as biased judgements.

Collectively, these studies highlight the important role teachers play in shaping pupils’ experiences while looking at the topic from an international angle. The findings highlight the need for strategies to address these found biases that may contribute to educational inequalities.

The increasing heterogeneity of the student population often poses a challenge for teachers, as they often feel inadequately prepared and therefore less positive about including students with special educational needs (SEN). In this context, research has indicated that a diagnosis or label of SEN affects teachers´ expectations and behaviour. Indeed, stereotype-based expectations of teachers determine their interactions with different students and in turn student outcomes. These expectations are also associated with different feelings, which in turn have an influence on how teachers (re)act in certain teaching situations. Stereotype based expectations can be triggered by just one salient attribute, whereby stereotype knowledge can reduce complexity and facilitates the effective processing of information. Stereotypes develop according to systematic principles, and people´s perception of others is mainly determined by the dimensions of warmth and competence. The mixed stereotype content model proposes that different warmth-competence combinations may trigger differential behavioural and affective responses (e.g. paternalistic emotions vs. resentment). The current study aimed to investigate to what extent teacher expectations of students´ warmth and competence and their emotions concerning inclusion of students with SEN varied as a function of specific SEN. Participants included 25 experienced in-service and 45 pre-service teachers (primary school). Participants were presented with two student descriptions: One student vignette described a student with learning difficulties and another a student with challenging behaviour. After reading each description, teachers were asked to complete scales to rate the student´s warmth and competence and teachers´ emotions were assessed using a semantic differential scale. Results of a 2×2×2 mixed method ANOVA showed significant main effects of stereotype dimension and teacher status but not SEN. Most interestingly however, there were significant two and three-way interaction effects indicating that in-service teachers´ ratings varied as a function of dimension and SEN whereas preservice teachers´ generally provided higher ratings for warmth than competence regardless of SEN. Results of a 2×2 mixed method ANOVA showed that teachers emotions varied as a function of student SEN but not teacher status. Teachers felt les secure, more anxious and less optimistic when considering including students with challenging behaviour than a student with learning difficulties. Results of our study support previous findings concerning the effect of student characteristics on teachers´ expectations and emotions. Given the relationship between teacher expectations and student performance and the associations between expectations, emotions and behaviour, these findings can contribute to understanding factors underlying educational inequalities.

Avramidis, E., Bayliss, P., & Burden, R. (2000). A survey into mainstream teachers´ attitudes towards the inclusion of children with special educational needs in the ordinary school in one Local Education Authority. Educational Psychology : An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology, 20, 191–211. https://doi.org/10.1080/713663717 Cuddy, A. J. C., Fiske, S. T., & Glick, P. (2007). The BIAS map: behaviors from intergroup affect and stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(4), 631–648. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.4.631 Cuddy, A. J. C., Fiske, S. T., & Glick, P. (2008). Warmth and competence as universal dimensions of social perception: The Stereotype Content Model and the BIAS map. In Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 40, pp. 61–149). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(07)00002-0 Eagly, A. H., & Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., Glick, P., & Xu, J. (2002). A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: competence and warmth respectively follow from perceived status and competition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82(6), 878–902. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.82.6.878 İnan-Kaya, G., & Rubie-Davies, C. M. (2022). Teacher classroom interactions and behaviours: Indications of bias. Learning and Instruction, 78(April 2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2021.101516

Social behaviors such as impatience and disrespect can be one important component of different types of SEN such as autism or challenging behavior (McClintock et al., 2003) but can also be associated with gifted students (Preckel et al., 2015). As such, gifted students often are associated with behavioral difficulties and negative social behavior, as are students with SEN. Teachers as well as preservice teachers know about typical social behavior patterns of students and how they are related to stereotypes about a particular student group. Stereotypes as generalized knowledge about the members of a particular social group (Smith, 1998), can color people’s perceptions and bias the judgments of the members of this groups. Many studies have already provided evidence for stereotypes biasing teacher judgments, in the domain of ethnic minority students, students from families with low socio-economic background, or students with special education needs (Glock et al., 2020).1 With this vignette study at hand, we were experimentally investigated whether very rare social information about a student biases teacher judgments. Among a sample 88 preservice teachers, we investigated the influence of social behavior on their academic achievement judgments and feelings of resignation. We described two students, one showing respect and patience in the interaction with others, while the other student was described as disrespectful and impatient. We asked the preservice teachers to judge the student’s language proficiency and in mathematics ability. Additionally, we asked the participants to judge the student’s learning behavior, general ability, concentration, motivation, and intelligence. The participants judged the concentration, motivation, and learning behavior of the student described with the positive social behavior more positively than of the student with the negative social behavior. Most impressively, the preservice teachers judged the student with the positive social behavior as higher achieving in mathematics than the student with the negative social behavior. The preservice teachers felt more resignation (e.g. “I would feel helpless”) when imagining a confrontation with the student with the negative as compared to the positive social behavior. Our study shows that simply adding very rare information about the social behavior of a student can bias preservice teachers’ judgments. This implies that students with SEN and also gifted students might at a double risk, because they might cause feelings of resignation and also because teachers might judge them worse even when the remaining information is controlled for.

Glock, S., Kleen, H., Krischler, M., & Pit-ten Cate, I. M. (2020). Die Einstellungen von Lehrpersonen gegenüber Schüler*innen ethnischer Minoritäten und Schüler*innen mit sonderpädagogischem Förderbedarf: Ein Forschungsüberblick [Teachers' attitudes toward students from ethnic minorites and with special education needs]. In S. Glock & H. Kleen (Eds.), Stereotype in der Schule (pp. 225–279). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-27275-3_8 McClintock, K., Hall, S., & Oliver, C. (2003). Risk markers associated with challenging behaviours in people with intellectual disabilities: A meta-analytic study. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 47(6), 405–416. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2788.2003.00517.x Preckel, F., Baudson, T. G., Krolak-Schwerdt, S., & Glock, S. (2015). Gifted and maladjusted? Implicit attitudes and automatic associations related to gifted children. American Educational Research Journal, 52(6), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831215596413 Smith, E. R. (1998). Mental representation and memory. In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (pp. 391–445). McGraw-Hill.

In the U.S., Black and Latinx/e students face educational disadvantages, especially in subjects belonging to the STEM field (Gutiérrez, 2012). Schools have been identified as one source contributing to such disparities (Michelmore & Rich, 2023). Within the school system, teachers and their practices play a critical role. Previous research has shown racial-ethnic biases in classroom instruction (e.g. Tenenbaum & Ruck, 2007). In mathematics, teacher biases can be a result of lower expectations towards pupils from minoritized groups, particularly Black girls (Copur-Gencturk et al., 2019). Whereas teacher biases have been extensively investigated in the domain of academic judgments and disciplinary referrals, to our knowledge, teachers’ natural language in approximations of teaching, particularly in the domain of ambitious math instruction, have not been investigated experimentally. Teachers’ language in their in-the-moment responses to students is a site that may be particularly sensitive to biases, as biases are most salient in non-reflective, automatic processes. We thus aimed to investigate teachers’ spontaneous spoken responses to students’ mathematical explanations in an experimental setting. Participants were N=271 teachers of record in the U.S. The study had a one-factorial between-persons design in which participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a classroom with predominantly Black, Latinx/e or white students, reflecting the relatively segregated nature of American classrooms. Teachers were presented with six hypothetical fourth grade classroom vignettes. The vignettes showed different mathematics tasks and student explanations of their problem-solving process. After reading the target student explanation, teachers were asked what they would say and do next. Using voice recording software embedded in our survey panel, we captured teachers' spoken responses. We employ natural language processing methods to decipher topics by cohesion, identifying unique topics ranging from mathematically-focused language (e.g. number line) to process-oriented language (e.g. explain, who thinks). We also apply a sentiment analysis using the BING dictionary. We find significant differences in the topics discussed by experimental condition. Teachers showed, for example, greater likelihood of affirmative but little mathematical language for the Black condition relative to the White condition. Additionally, we find a tendency in sentiment that teachers were positive toward Black students compared to white or Latinx/e students. Finally, we find more words spoken on average in the white classroom condition compared to the Black and Latinx/e conditions. Our findings have implications for anti-racist teacher education tied to specific instructional domains in ambitious math teaching.

Copur-Gencturk, Y., Cimpian, J. R., Lubienski, S. T., & Thacker, I. (2019). Teachers’ Bias Against the Mathematical Ability of Female, Black, and Hispanic Students: Educational Researcher. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X19890577 Gutiérrez, R. (2012). Context matters: How should we conceptualize equity in mathematics education? In B. Herbel-Eisenmann, J. Choppin, D. Wagner, & D. Pimm (Eds.), Equity in discourse for mathematics education: Theories, practices, and policies (pp. 17–33). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-2813-4_2 Michelmore, K., & Rich, P. (2023). Contextual origins of Black-White educational disparities in the 21st century: Evaluating long-term disadvantage across three domains. Social Forces, 101(4), 1918-1947. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soac098 Tenenbaum, H. R., & Ruck, M. D. (2007). Are teachers’ expectations different for racial minority than for European American students? A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99, 253–273. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.99.2.253

Inclusion has taken the spotlight in education and teachers and their attitudes play a decisive role in its successful implementation (Markova et al., 2016). Stereotypes are beliefs about the characteristics and behaviour of members of a social group (Hilton & von Hippel, 1996). With regard to inclusion, stereotypes differ depending on the pupils’ needs: Pupils with Down syndrome, for example, are stereotypically perceived as warm but not very competent (Fiske, 2012). Autistic pupils, on the other hand, are often associated with savant abilities (Bennett et al., 2018). However, there is little research on the relationship between teachers’ stereotypes in the context of inclusion and their diagnostic process or diagnostic decisions. The few existing studies show inconsistent results (Glock et al., 2020). We therefore investigate the stereotypes of pre-service teachers, their diagnostic process/ decision as well as the relationship between them. We will focus on autistic pupils and pupils with Down syndrome as two large groups of pupils with special educational needs that are seen as very different (American Psychological Association, 2023) by investigating the following hypotheses: H1: Pre-service teachers have stereotypes towards autistic pupils and pupils with Down syndrome. H2: Pre-service teachers’ judgements are biased by the existence of a diagnosis in comparison to no diagnosis. H3: Pre-service teachers’ stereotypes influence the diagnostic decision so stereotypes lead to a biased decision independent of the actual information. We investigate this in an online simulation. Data collection is currently still running. An estimated N = 180 pre-service teachers will participate in an online study. The participants are presented with four pupils and different sources of information. The pupils vary depending on whether they have a diagnosis or not and whether they are described in a stereotypical way or not. With limited time, they are instructed to gather information and make a diagnostic decision. We also assess implicit and explicit stereotypes, prior knowledge and demographic data. Premilitary results show both- the existence of stereotypes as well as significant differences regarding the diagnostic decision: Considering the Bonferroni adjusted p-value, there was a significant difference between pupils described in the same way but with and without a diagnosis. Final results will be presented at the conference as we are just finishing data collection. We expect pre-service teachers to have stronger implicit than explicit stereotypes regarding autistic pupils and pupils with Down syndrome; leading to strongly biased decisions in which information related to stereotypes is overvalued.

American Psychological Association. (2023). APA Dicitionary of Psychology. https://dictionary.apa.org/ Bennett, M., Webster, A. A., Goodall, E., & Rowland, S. (2018). Understanding the “True” Potential of Autistic People: Debunking the Savant Syndrome Myth. In M. Bennett, A. A. Webster, E. Goodall, & S. Rowland, Life on the Autism Spectrum (S. 103–124). Springer Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3359-0_6 Fiske, S. T. (2018). Stereotype Content: Warmth and Competence Endure. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27(2), 67–73. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721417738825 Glock, S., Kleen, H., Krischler, M., & Pit-ten Cate, I. (2020). Die Einstellungen von Lehrpersonen gegenüber Schüler*innen ethnischer Minoritäten und Schüler*innen mit sonderpädagogischem Förderbedarf: Ein Forschungsüberblick. In S. Glock & H. Kleen (Hrsg.), Stereotype in der Schule (S. 225–279). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-27275-3_8 Pit-ten Cate, I. M., & Krischler, M. (2020). Stereotype hinsichtlich Schüler*innen mit sonderpädagogischem Förderbedarf: Lehrkraftüberzeugungen, -erwartungen und -gefühle. In S. Glock & H. Kleen (Hrsg.), Stereotype in der Schule (S. 191–224). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-27275-3_7