Culture or Teacher Bias? Racial and Ethnic Variation in Student–Teacher Effort Assessment Match/Mismatch

Abstract

Three leading theories of racial achievement gaps in education include cultural capital match/mismatch, oppositional culture, and teacher bias. Cultural capital match/mismatch theory suggests that students and teachers do not share the same understanding of the standards, norms, and expectations required for achievement. Oppositional culture theory suggests that students may resist the standards, norms, and expectations of achievement, and teacher bias theory suggests that teachers have standards, norms, and expectations that privilege some students, but not others. The unifying thread in all three of these theories is how teachers and students perceive and execute the standards, norms, and expectations of schooling. This study offers a unique way of operationalizing whether and how cultural capital, oppositional culture, and/or teacher bias occur in everyday classroom practice and behavior by examining racialized patterns of student–teacher effort assessment match/mismatch. Using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study (Base Year 2002), I find no evidence for oppositional culture; net of other background characteristics, black students are less, and Hispanic students are no more likely than white students to agree with their teachers that they have low effort. Black and Hispanic students are more likely than white students to believe they are working hard when their teacher disagrees, but, consistent with cultural capital theory, socioeconomic background and academic skills account for all of their effort misalignment. Lastly, white and Asian students seem to benefit from positive teacher bias; net of background and skill, black and Hispanic students are less likely than white and Asian students to receive positive teacher effort assessment when they admit to not working hard.