Preservice teachers’ attitudes, attributions, and stereotypes: Exploring the disadvantages of students from families with low socioeconomic status

Abstract

In many educational systems, students from families with low socioeconomic status (SES) often score lower in academic achievement than their high SES peers. Even though this effect is well-documented and research on teachers’ stereotypical beliefs and attitudes is steadily increasing, the studies so far did not specifically focus on students’ SES. In the current study, we explored preservice teachers’ implicit attitudes and their stereotypical and prejudiced beliefs toward low SES students as well as their causal attributions for the low educational success of low SES students. Results showed that teachers had negative implicit attitudes toward low SES students and that they more strongly associated competences and good learning and working habits with high SES students. The correlations highlighted the role that stereotypes play in causal attributions. Participants who more strongly associated low SES with competence and good working and learning behaviors were less likely to endorse internal attributions but were more likely to emphasize external attributions. Hence, when preservice teachers see low SES students as having high ability, they also strongly view the educational system as a source of the disadvantages that low SES students experience in school.