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How teachers form educational expectations for students: A comparative factorial survey experiment in three
Sara Geven1, Øyvind N Wiborg2, Rachel E Fish3
1Department of Sociology / Amsterdam Centre for Inequality Studies, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Social Science Research
|October 10, 2021
Summary
Teacher expectations for students vary significantly by country. Institutional context, like tracking and equality policies, influences how teachers weigh student traits, impacting educational outcomes for disadvantaged students.
Area of Science:
- Sociology of Education
- Educational Psychology
- Comparative Education
Background:
- Teachers often hold lower expectations for disadvantaged students, despite meritocratic ideals.
- The specific impact of student traits on teacher expectations is unclear due to trait correlations.
- The influence of institutional context on teacher expectations is under-researched.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how institutional context shapes teacher expectations.
- To examine the differential impact of student traits on teacher expectations across countries.
- To understand the role of tracking, financial barriers, and cultural beliefs in expectation formation.
Main Methods:
- Conducted a factorial survey experiment with elementary school teachers.
- Collected data from three distinct institutional contexts: New York City (USA), Oslo (Norway), and Amsterdam (Netherlands).
- Experimentally manipulated hypothetical student characteristics to assess teacher expectations.
Main Results:
- Teachers across contexts used similar student traits but varied in their importance.
- In Amsterdam, student performance significantly impacted expectations due to performance-based tracking.
- In Oslo, teachers relied less on effort and inferred more from socio-economic background, reflecting a commitment to equality.
Conclusions:
- Institutional context critically influences how teachers form expectations for students.
- Performance-based tracking systems amplify the impact of student performance on teacher expectations.
- Educational policies aimed at equality may lead to different, yet still potentially biased, expectation formation processes.
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