TEACHER AND IMPLICIT BIAS

Teacher Bias and Implicit Bias

Courtney Head

Pittsburg State University

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Growing up, I have always felt as if my teachers had biases against other students, but

growing up as white female, in a predominately white school, I did not think of it as much.

Seeing now how it has affected my peers who may be different from them, I wish I had paid

more attention. Implicit bias or commonly known in the education world as teacher bias has been

affecting students learning for the longest time now. Many instructors are often unaware that

they even bring a teacher bias into the classroom with them. It is time, to start sheading light onto

this topic and really help change our kids' education.

When choosing a topic for this paper, I originally wanted to do something based in

corporate America against women. I could not find anything that I found was worthy enough to

write about. That is when I stumbled across an article that talked about implicit bias and how it

affects education. I read the article and knew immediately that this was what I wanted to write

about. I grew up in a small town, where depending on what your last name was, is how you were

treated. I found myself in the middle ground, with mainly people just thinking I would be like

my sister and proving them wrong. There were times, however, where I knew people were

treated unfairly just based on who they were. Reading farther into this, and seeing how

staggering and heartbreaking the statics were, I knew I had to write about it.

In the article, Teacher Bias: The Elephant in the Room, discuss how teachers everywhere

have what is called teacher bias, and many are unaware that they do. The article starts out by

discussing how although there are some inequalities in the classroom one of the most dangerous

ones, that most people do not like to acknowledge is a teacher bias or known as an unconscious

bias. The article, Teacher Bias: The Elephant in the Classroom defines an unconscious bias as,

“the underrepresentation of women, racial, and ethnic minorities in computer science and other
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fields of science, technology, engineering, and math”. This teacher bias causes many students not

to be able to graduate or finish school on time. Teacher biases can date back for as long as the

public-school system has been around. In the 1960’s a Harvard professor conduct an experiment

to see how teachers may different expectations of students and how that may affect the students'

performance. The professor told a group of elementary school teachers that one test could

determine which students IQs were going to increase, and so he selected a group of random

students and labeled them as potential growth. The professor tested the students’ real IQ and that

beginning of the year and at the end. This showed that the teachers had expected the students to

have bigger gains in their IQ, then the teachers made sure they did. This study helped showed

that it doesn’t matter what the preference the teacher may have for a student, depending on the

expectations a teacher has for their student, is how the student's performance will be.

The article continues into discussing about how a teacher bias can affect a student's

achievement. Most young students link their attitudes and beliefs about school and how they will

do in school on how their teacher feels about them. Teacher bias can also affect a student’s GPA,

self-motivation, and student’s effort in the classroom. The article then breaks down teacher bias

into different bias, gender being the first one, and there is teacher bias against both genders. The

first one being against boys in school. The article, Teacher Bias: The Elephant in the Classroom,

quotes from a book called Reaching Boys, Teaching Boys, stating how “boys are expelled from

preschool almost five more times than girls, boys are more likely to drop out and do less

homework and boys make up an increasingly low number of college graduates". The article then

goes more in depth about the discrimination against girls in school. The article states how

teachers give girls rewards for staying quiet rather than them having start looking for deeper
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answers. Teachers also interrupt girls, not call them to the front of the class, and less likely to

look towards girls while answering the open-ended questions.

Teacher bias is not only in the classroom, but also when it comes to grading. The article

then states about a study that was conducted that showed how teachers took their teacher bias

outside their classroom. The study took teachers from outside the classroom and inside the

classroom and had them grade a set of math tests. The study showed that the teachers from inside

the classroom gave their female students lower grades than male students, whereas; the outside

teachers did not. The only difference in the study was that the outside teachers did not who the

tests belong too. This study also showed how girls in the sixth grade who given unfair grades,

often didn’t purse higher level STEM classes in high school. All the teachers in the study where

female teachers and the article assumes that the teacher’s bias must come from the way the

teachers were treating unfairly by their female teachers.

The article then goes more into depth about the racial biases taking place in the

classroom. The article refers to report in 2014 that showed that only 18% of preschoolers were

black, but that they made up 48% of the children suspended more than one time. The report

showed that teachers suggested that more disciplinary action take place action take place towards

students who didn’t match their race. The article then refers to how, according the National

Center for Education Statistics founded that in 2010 students of color only made up about 45%

of public-school student population, but 83% of teachers were white. The racial bias goes outside

the school. The article discusses how most students of color are put into schools that are low-

income, with not as many qualified teachers, less materials, bigger classes sizes, and lower

expectations for their students after graduation. If student of color does happen to be place in a

higher-class school, they are usually placed in classrooms that do not set them up to succeed. The
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article then continues to explain how the racial bias goes further than just students of color that

were born in the United States. The article refers to a study done 2018 that shows pre-service

teachers graded students that showed that they may have a migrant background worse than those

who didn’t.

The article then goes more into an implicit bias and how it affects the classroom. The

article talks about a study done in 2013 about how teachers' personal feelings about a student

would get in the way of their grading. The study showed how moderators looked many essays

graded by teachers and it showed that many teachers graded their student's essays based on the

teacher personal felt about that student. The article then mentions the idea of “teacher's pet”. The

article also states how when many students have to give an oral presentation included with a

written assignment, the teacher will give a better grade on the written work to those who had a

better oral presentation. The article finishes up with talking about ways that we can try and

eliminate all these biases in the classroom and outside of it.

I completely agree with this article. It was interesting how everything was broken up and

explained more in depth. I choose to continue with this topic because I find it interesting and

how it has affected my personal life. I grew up as the kid who was always nice and quiet, and I

began to learn that teachers loved those kinds of kids. I have always thought I was smart, or at

least somewhat smart and that is why I got good grades. This article made me question though

some of the good grades I got. I still noticed this today while I’m in college. I’ve noticed that

certain professor will be easier on me than they will my friends. I think this something that

happens in small towns, like where I’m from, a lot because of many of the teachers knowing the

parents of the student. I have always been frustrated because most of teachers knew my sister,

who I am the exact opposite of, but they always assumed that we would be the same. This article
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is 100% correct in everything it says. In the next article it focuses more on the implicit bias on

the classroom and zones in the racial implicit bias in the classroom.

The article “How Implicit Bias Impacts Our Children in Education” states what exactly

an implicit bias is. “Implicit bias, also known as implicit social cognition, is influenced by

attitudes and stereotypes that we all hold based on our experiences. Implicit bias influences how

we act in a subconscious way, even if we renounce prejudices or stereotypes in our daily lives.”

(Scialabba, 2017). This bias affects how we may see a certain group of individuals, whether that

be by cultural, gender, sexual orientation, or a disability. The article also brings to light how

although everyone may these implicit biases, the problem is that the biases often get ignored and

our brought into the workplace.

The article then goes more into depth about the ways that these implicit biases are

affecting school children today. The article first starts out by explaining how with the decision of

Brown v. Board of Education started a tidal wave of issues for black teachers in America. Many

of the teachers that taught only at the African American schools lost their jobs because of not

being able to find work. Many white parents complained about the fact that they did not want

their children to be taught by a black educator, this in turn made many of the new desegregated

schools start to fill up with white, middle class educators who could not fully help or understand

their students of color. This has now turned into we see today where many black students are

being faced with negative side effects of the school system.

The article then brings up this idea of school-to-prison pipeline for black students. This

idea basically states that many black students will go from the school system into the prison

system. The article shows statistics of how black students face this implicit basis in the school
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system in America. One of them is black children represent 18% of preschool enrollment but

48% of black students receive more than one out-of-school suspensions. A different statistic is

that Black students are suspended and expelled three times more than white students.

The article also goes more in depth talking about the workforce in school is not as diverse

as it could be. “One of the findings is that there is a predominantly white teacher workforce that

does not match the more diverse schoolchildren population.” (Scialabba, 2017). As a result, from

this many black students are face in dealing with an implicit basis that comes from their own

teacher. The article also states how many white teachers would discipline their black students

more harshly than they would their white students. The article then goes more into depth with

how black school children are more likely to be suspended than white students. The article also

states how a single suspension in the first year of high school can double the chances of someone

dropping out. The article also states how students who are expelled are three times more likely to

be in the juvenile justice system. This article highlights just the many things that many black

children must face today in the school system. When teachers come in with an implicit basis it

can be not only difficult but life changing for many black students.

I completely agree with this article and I still feel as if it true today. I know growing up, I

don’t believe I had on African American teacher, who wasn’t just a substitute teacher. My school

was also not very diverse, with maybe only three African American students in my graduating

class. This made it difficult for not only many teachers and the students who had to deal with any

implicit basis that may have occurred. This article is interesting to me, because believe here in

the Midwest this is something that we grow up without even realizing it.
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In this final article, it begins discussing how education biases maybe part of the reason

for racial issues happening in the world. The article pulls from a study that was published in

Educational Researcher that shows how teachers with implicit biases directly affect the student's

achievements and discipline. There is also a test done called the Project Implicit’s white-Black

implicit association test or commonly known as IAT. The test was then compared to data from

the Stanford Education Data Archive and the Civil Rights Data Collection, that shows the racial

achievement gap and racial discipline gap. The study first showed how educators often hold a

small pro-white/anti-Black implicit bias, and this bias comes more from the individual than it

does contextual. The second finding in this study is that there were larger racial disparities in test

scores and suspensions in counties with more implicit bias in the teachers. The article finishes by

explaining how some of the studies findings show that implicit biases may be a reason for the

today’s racial disparities. It ends with stating how to get rid of implicit bias, teachers need to

work on getting rid of the contextual factors that they hold and looking at each teachers'

individual implicit attitudes.

As I have stated before with the preivous articles, I completely agree with this article. I

believe we need to start looking more into teachers’ individual implicit attitudes before we even

allow them to teach. I do not believe we should be letting teachers, who have negative feelings

towards students of different colors, teach. Something America prides it self on, is being the

melting pot of many different cultures, we must have educators who want to embrace that and

accept it. I do agree, however, that some teachers may not even be aware that they have an

implicit bias. It is something that started way back when slavery was still around and is still

causing issues today in the classroom. Every student deserves a right to a proper and fair

education, regardless of their ethnicity or gender.

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While I have been researching this topic, I found myself getting more and more angry at

the way education is today. Many people are still ignoring that it is going on today, but it is.

Many teachers are unaware of what they are doing, and I think that it speaks volumes to the

growth in America. Yes, America no longer has slavery, no longer has segregated school

systems, but is education fair to everyone? Many of these implicit biases will follow these

students into adulthood, especially since black students are more likely to be suspended than

white students. Many young girls are expected to be quiet and courteous and young boys are

suppose to show how big and strong they are getting. It’s time for a change.
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References

Dhaliwal, T., Chin, M., Lovison, V., & Quinn, D. (2020, July 20). Educator bias is associated

with racial disparities in student achievement and discipline. Retrieved December 03,

2020, from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-

chalkboard/2020/07/20/educator-bias-is-associated-with-racial-disparities-in-student-

achievement-and-discipline/

Scialabba, N. (2017). How Implicit Bias Impacts Our Children in Education. Retrieved

September 26, 2020, from

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/childrens-

rights/articles/2017/fall2017-how-implicit-bias-impacts-our-children-in-education/

Teacher Bias: The Elephant in the Classroom. (2018, August 27). Retrieved October 24, 2020,

from https://www.thegraidenetwork.com/blog-all/2018/8/1/teacher-bias-the-elephant-in-

the-classroom
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