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

AbstractSchools 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 (Ntotal = 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.