International Journal of Disability, Development and

Education

ISSN: 1034-912X (Print) 1465-346X (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cijd20

Academic Expectations of Australian Students

from Aboriginal, Asian and Anglo Backgrounds:
Perspectives of Teachers, Trainee-teachers and
Students

Justine Dandy, Kevin Durkin, Bonnie L. Barber & Stephen Houghton

To cite this article: Justine Dandy, Kevin Durkin, Bonnie L. Barber & Stephen Houghton (2015)
Academic Expectations of Australian Students from Aboriginal, Asian and Anglo Backgrounds:
Perspectives of Teachers, Trainee-teachers and Students, International Journal of Disability,
Development and Education, 62:1, 60-82, DOI: 10.1080/1034912X.2014.984591

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1034912X.2014.984591

Published online: 22 Jan 2015.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 4949

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 6 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cijd20
International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 2015
Vol. 62, No. 1, 60–82, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1034912X.2014.984591

Academic Expectations of Australian Students from Aboriginal,

Asian and Anglo Backgrounds: Perspectives of Teachers,
Trainee-teachers and Students
Justine Dandya*, Kevin Durkinb, Bonnie L. Barberc and Stephen Houghtonb,d
a
School of Psychology and Social Science, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup, WA, Australia;
b
School of Psychological Sciences and Health, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK;
c
School of Psychology, Murdoch University, Murdoch, WA, Australia; dGraduate School of
Education, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia

There are ethnic group differences in academic achievement among Australian stu-
dents, with Aboriginal students performing substantially below and Asian students
above their peers. One factor that may contribute to these effects is societal stereo-
types of Australian Asian and Aboriginal students, which may bias teachers’ evalua-
tions and influence student outcomes. A questionnaire assessing academic
expectancies for hypothetical students from different ethnic groups was administered
to 55 experienced teachers and 144 training teachers. A measure of self-expectancies
and group expectancies was administered to 516 school students. The findings
revealed that Asian students were expected to perform better in mathematics and
expend greater effort than Aboriginal and Anglo-Australian students. In turn, there
were higher expectancies for mathematics performance for Anglo-Australian students
compared with Aboriginal students. We discuss the potential implications of these
stereotypes for students’ school achievement, particularly the risk that negative impli-
cit stereotypes might result in these students being directed to special education.
Keywords: Aboriginal Australian; Asian Australian; ethnicity; expectancies;
self-stereotyping; stereotype threat; stereotypes

Introduction
There is now growing evidence of ethnic group differences in academic achievement
among Australian students. In particular, it is well documented that Aboriginal Austra-
lian1 students lag behind their peers in terms of school performance (for example, Gray,
Hunter, & Schwab, 2000; McInerney, 2003, 2008; McInerney, Hinkley, Dowson, & van
Etten, 1998; McInerney & McInerney, 2002; Mellor & Corrigan, 2004; Ministerial
Council on Education, Employment and Youth Affairs, 2000). Aboriginal Australian
children have lower school participation and retention rates (McInerney, 2003, 2012;
Mellor & Corrigan, 2004), are at greater risk of being required to repeat a year in early
primary schooling (Anderson, 2012) and are substantially over-represented in referrals
to special education (DiGiacomo et al., 2013; Sweller, Graham, & Van Bergen, 2012).
This has led to concerns that, “an unacceptable number of Indigenous students are get-
ting caught between long-standing systemic racism and the new ‘hunt for disability’ in
schools” (Graham, 2012, p. 165).

*Corresponding author. Email: j.dandy@ecu.edu.au

© 2015 Justine Dandy, Kevin Durkin, Bonnie L. Barber and Stephen Houghton
 Academic Expectations of Australian Students 61

Relatively less is known about the school performance of other Australian ethnic
minorities, although there is some evidence that students from Asian backgrounds out-
perform other groups, particularly in mathematics (Dandy & Nettelbeck, 2002; Khoo &
Birrell, 2002; McInerney, 2008). Whilst researchers have proposed a number of expla-
nations for these ethnic group differences in achievement, particularly with regard to
the poor performance of Aboriginal Australian students, surprisingly the roles of socie-
tal stereotypes and teacher expectations have been relatively unexplored. In this article,
we report three studies investigating, in turn, the expectations associated with student
ethnicity that are held by teachers in training, by practising teachers and by a large sam-
ple of school students. These studies are informed by past research in educational and
social psychology, including the considerable literature on teacher expectation effects,
research addressing educational disadvantage for Aboriginal Australian students, and
Australian evidence for stereotypes of students from Asian and Aboriginal backgrounds.
The main findings of these literatures are summarised in the next section.

The Importance of Teacher Expectations

Teacher expectation effects can be self-fulfilling, whereby teachers come to elicit the
performance they expect from students, or sustaining, in which teachers expect continu-
ity in a student’s performance and therefore are blind to the possibility of change—most
notably, improvement in a student’s achievement (Rubie-Davies, Hattie, & Hamilton,
2006). The self-fulfilling prophecy effect was first demonstrated in schools by Rosenthal
and Jacobson (1968). Although more recent research has refined our understanding of
the nature and extent of this effect, evidence continues to accumulate that teachers’ per-
ceptions may bias their evaluations of students and predict the students’ achievement
levels (Jussim & Harber, 2005; Madon, Jussim, & Eccles, 1997; Rubie-Davies et al.,
2006; Smith, Jussim, & Eccles, 1999; Weinstein, Gregory, & Strambler, 2004). In a
comprehensive investigation of the impact of teacher perceptions on student achieve-
ment, Smith et al. (1999) discovered that teacher perceptions were related to student
performance up to six years after the initial assessment. Furthermore, there is evidence
that student characteristics, such as gender, social class and ethnicity, influence teachers’
expectations (Baron, Tom, & Cooper, 1985: Hsia & Peng, 1998; Madon et al., 1998;
Rubie-Davies et al., 2006; St. George, 1983).
Several researchers have proposed that expectancy effects might be more deleterious
for academically stigmatised groups, such as students of minority ethnic backgrounds
and girls in mathematics (Hudley & Graham, 2001; McKown & Weinstein, 2002;
Weinstein et al., 2004). Jussim, Eccles, and Madon (1996) found that African-American
students were more vulnerable to teacher expectancy effects than White American stu-
dents. Moreover, McKown and Weinstein (2002) found that teacher underestimates of
academic ability had a more powerful effect, and overestimates a weaker effect, on the
subsequent achievement of African American children and mathematics achievement of
girls. In other words, low expectations had a more negative impact on these students
and high expectations a less positive impact in comparison with Caucasian-American
students and boys’ performance in mathematics.
Weinstein and others (for example, McKown & Weinstein, 2002; Weinstein et al.,
2004) propose that these results may be explained using the stereotype threat model
(Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999; Steele & Aronson, 1995). This model holds that acti-
vation of a negative academic stereotype of one’s group can impair an individual’s per-
formance, particularly when the task is presented as being indicative of ability. Studies
62 J. Dandy et al.

have shown this effect to occur in a variety of settings with a number of different social
groups, such as ethnic minorities (Gonzales, Blanton, & Williams, 2002; Steele &
Aronson, 1995), women (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999), low socio-economic status
(SES) groups (Croizet & Claire, 1998) and primary school children (Weinstein et al.,
2004). Cheryan and Bodenhausen (2000) extended this work to investigate the impact
of stereotypes about mathematics performance on female Asian American students.
Despite the stereotype being largely positive (e.g., “Asians are good at mathematics”),
the students’ performance was impaired when the stereotype was presented in such a
way that it emphasised the high expectations of others. More specifically, when
Cheryan and Bodenhausen (2000) made the ethnic stereotype explicit, their participants
were concerned about failing to meet expectations and this disrupted their concentration
and performance on the task.

Academic Expectancies and Australasian Societies

The bulk of research on expectancy effects has been conducted in North America.
Given the insights this body of work provides into factors that may have substantial
and enduring effects on children’s educational performance, it is important to examine
the extent to which these processes generalise to other cultural contexts. As noted
above, we know that students’ ethnicity is associated with attainment in Australia (and
similar findings, discussed below, have been reported in New Zealand), but the roles of
expectancies and self-perceptions have not yet been investigated in detail.
Several factors have been proposed to account for the educational disadvantage of
Aboriginal Australian students. These include: home and family characteristics such as
a lack of parental encouragement and support for education; cultural factors such as dif-
ferences in motivation and learning styles; experiences of racial prejudice and discrimi-
nation; geographical isolation resulting in poorer quality schooling; and, perhaps most
importantly, socio-economic factors including poverty, unemployment, sub-standard
housing and health (McInerney, 2003, 2012; McInerney et al., 1998). Whilst the
evidence concerning the social and economic disadvantage of Indigenous Australians is
undeniable, research has challenged explanations based on children’s and parents’
beliefs about, and support for, success in schooling. For example, research by
McInerney has demonstrated that Aboriginal students have similar academic and moti-
vational goals compared with Anglo-Australian school students (McInerney, 2003,
2008, 2012; McInerney et al., 1998). Similarly, research has shown that Aboriginal par-
ents rate the importance of schooling as highly as non-Aboriginal parents (McInerney
& McInerney, 2002). In contrast to assumptions of differential student/family goals,
McInerney argues that a stronger explanation for the poor school performance of
Aboriginal Australian students may lie in their self-perceptions and beliefs. Despite
similar motivational goals and often more positive feelings toward school, Aboriginal
students tend to be higher in negative self-esteem and/or negative self-concept
compared with Anglo-Australian students (McInerney, 2003, 2008).
Given the pattern of McInerney’s findings, it is possible that Aboriginal Australian
students are self-stereotyping as poor students. According to Weinstein, Gregory, and
Strambler’s (2004, p. 513) review, self-stereotyping—in which the expectations of oth-
ers become internalised—is one of three “plausible mechanisms” underlying expectancy
effects among ethnic minorities, such as African Americans, in the US educational con-
text. The other two potential mechanisms are: institutional policies and practices (e.g.,
streaming in schools); and inaccurate expectations held by teachers and more broadly,
 Academic Expectations of Australian Students 63

in terms of societal stereotypes. These factors are mutually reinforcing: if a child is

expected by teachers to perform relatively poorly, and is placed in a lower stream, then
he or she may well be at risk of forming a negative self-stereotype for educational
attainment.
Although little research has addressed these possibilities within Australia, several
studies in the neighbouring country New Zealand have demonstrated that teachers’ low
expectations of Maori (Indigenous New Zealand) students had sustaining effects on per-
formance (Rubie-Davies et al., 2006; St. George, 1983). St. George found that this
operated through differences in classroom interactions, such that teachers interacted dif-
ferently with students for whom they held low expectations and this reinforced low aca-
demic performance. Rubie-Davies et al. suggested that Maori students in New Zealand
may be more vulnerable to negative teacher expectations because of societal stereotypes
that Maori families do not value education or encourage schoolwork. Again, this evi-
dence underscores the need to examine the ways in which specific stereotypes influence
educational processes.

Stereotypes of Aboriginal Australian and Asian Australian Students

There is accumulating evidence of societal stereotypes surrounding the academic perfor-
mance of Aboriginal Australian and Asian Australian students. As noted by McInerney
(2003, p. 317), “Australian Aboriginal children are often stereotyped, therefore, as lack-
ing the motivation to achieve and the cognitive processes needed to achieve at school”.
Moreover, studies of beliefs about Asian Australians indicate seemingly positive aspects
to the stereotypes in this case. For example, Dandy and Nettelbeck (2000) reported that
university students of Anglo-Australian and Chinese-Australian backgrounds perceived
“effort” as a more important explanation for the academic success of (hypothetical)
Chinese students than that of any other group, or even themselves. That is, Chinese stu-
dents in general were perceived as working very hard to achieve academic success and
all students endorsed effort as one of the most important predictors of success. In some
respects, at least, students of this Asian background are perceived as “model” students.
In summary, previous research indicates that ethnic stereotypes pertaining to aca-
demic achievement can influence student outcomes, in terms of biased teacher expecta-
tions and evaluations as well as student perceptions of stereotypic expectations of their
own group. More importantly, in some instances the influence is a negative one in
which the expectations of teachers and others impinge upon individual achievement,
and some minority groups may be more vulnerable to negative effects than others.
Indeed, negative implicit stereotypes might place students at greater risk of being direc-
ted to special education when it is not warranted.

The Present Research

Although there is anecdotal evidence of stereotypes of students from Asian and Aborig-
inal backgrounds in Australia, there is a paucity of empirical work demonstrating the
nature, prevalence and content of teacher expectations and self-expectations. The pur-
pose of the present project was to conduct a comprehensive, empirical investigation of
the perceptions and expectations of minority students among teachers and students in
Australian schools, with particular focus on Aboriginal and Asian students. Thus, three
studies were conducted.
64 J. Dandy et al.

The first study investigated trainee-teachers’ expectations. Teachers in training (i.e.,

the coming generation) are of particular interest because the assumptions and expecta-
tions of this group have the potential to bear on the prospects of several generations of
students. Furthermore, the social perceptions of individuals at this stage of their career
are relatively independent of actual classroom experience, enabling us to examine what
will be “taken into” the teacher–student relationship, prior to any modification or exac-
erbation in response to professional experience (including exposure to the attitudes of
more seasoned colleagues). The second study extended this investigation to a sample of
experienced school teachers. Not only can teachers’ perceptions bias their evaluations
of students, experienced teachers also socialise new teachers into established practices
and expectations. Thus, the experienced teachers’ perceptions impact both on their
students and on their colleagues, and consequently have considerable influence in the
school environment. As noted by McInerney, beliefs about Aboriginal Australian
students are frequently derived, not from evidence, but from “folk-loric tradition passed
on from teacher to teacher, or academic to academic” (2003, p. 317).
The third study examined Aboriginal, Asian and Anglo-Australian students’ expec-
tations and perceptions of their groups’ relative academic performance. It is known that
children become sensitive to the prevailing attitudes and relative group statuses from an
early age (Verkuyten, 2004). Previous findings that young members of different minor-
ity ethnic groups are aware of different levels of prejudice and categorisation that they
face (Verkuyten, 2001, 2004) led to the expectation that young Australians would show
differential perceptions. Specifically, in light of the stereotypes and research noted
above it was expected that, compared with the dominant cultural group of Anglo-
Australians, Aboriginal students would show lower expectations for their group’s aca-
demic performance, and students of Asian backgrounds would show higher expectations
for their group’s performance.

Study 1: Academic Expectancies among Trainee-teachers

Method
Participants
Participants were 144 trainee-teachers completing the Graduate Diploma of Education
at a metropolitan university. This is a one-year, postgraduate teaching qualification for
students who have already completed a four-year degree in Arts, Sciences or Humani-
ties. Grades to be taught were high school (Grades 8–12, ages 13–18) and the type of
education being studied in the Diploma included general education (i.e., to become
mathematics, science, English, and social sciences teachers). The majority of the sample
was female (72%), aged between 18 and 24 years (65%), and Anglo-Australian (80%);
that is, Australian by birth and of British ancestry. See Table 1 for details of demo-
graphic characteristics.

Measures
Participants completed a questionnaire booklet containing the expectancies measure,
and questions concerning demographic data such as age, gender, ethnicity and teaching
experience. The expectancies measure was based on questions used in the Michigan
Study of Adolescent Life Transitions (MSALT; Eccles, 1988). Expectancies were com-
pleted for hypothetical students from different ethnic groups, for each of the domains of
 Academic Expectations of Australian Students 65

Table 1. Demographic characteristics (frequencies) of trainee-teachers (Study 1) and teachers

(Study 2).
Trainee-teachers (n = 144)a Teachers (n = 55)
Gender
Male 40 13
Female 103 42
Age
18–24 93 0
25–30 23 6
31–35 9 9
36–40 9 9
41–45 5 6
46–50 2 12
51–55 2 8
56–60 0 4
Over 60 0 1
a
Demographic data were not available for one participant.

mathematics and English. Three students were labelled “a typical Chinese Australian
student”, “a typical Anglo-Australian student” and “a typical Aboriginal student”. For
each student and each domain, five items assessed expectancies regarding academic pro-
cesses and outcomes (natural talent, effort, current performance, future performance and
career). These items are consistent with those in the MSALT studies and include expec-
tancies regarding performance as well as ratings of effort and ability, two key factors in
academic outcomes. The student was first described as follows: “Please think about a
typical Australian student from a Chinese cultural background”, followed by items such
as “How much natural talent in maths do you think this student would have?” and
“How well do you think this student would perform in advanced math classes in the
future?” The response scale for all items ranged from one (“very little maths talent or
would perform very poorly”) to seven (“a lot of maths talent or would perform extre-
mely well”), with the exception of the item to assess expectancies for current academic
performance. This had a five-point response scale, ranging from one (“near the bottom
of the class”) to five (“one of the best in the class”). All responses were converted to a
common, seven-point scale for analysis.2
In addition, teachers completed one item designed to assess their perceptions of the
amount of family support for academic study that each student typically received. The
response scale for this item ranged from one (“not at all supportive”) to seven (“extre-
mely supportive”).

Procedure
We obtained ethical approval for the project from the University of Western Australia
(UWA) Human Research Ethics Committee, and received permission to approach
potential participants during their regular Graduate Diploma of Education lectures in the
first semester, prior to students’ completing their first school practicum. Participants
were provided with a brief verbal summary of the aims and procedure of the project.
Those who agreed to participate were provided with a questionnaire package containing
the measures described above and an information sheet. Participants completed the
questionnaires, which took approximately 30 minutes to complete, during class.
 66
J. Dandy et al.

Table 2. Trainee-teachers’ expectancies for performance in mathematics and English for Australian students from Chinese, Anglo-Australian and Aboriginal
backgrounds (N = 144).
Current Future
Talent Effort performance performance Career
Ethnic group M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD
Mathematics
Chinese 5.31 1.07 5.79 1.13 5.77 1.01 5.55 1.12 5.53 1.13
Anglo-Australian 4.49 0.66 4.51 0.82 4.60 0.72 4.31 0.76 4.38 0.90
Aboriginal 3.66 1.11 3.42 1.17 3.37 1.09 3.06 1.34 3.22 1.41
English
Chinese 4.07 1.10 5.27 1.14 4.55 0.96 4.29 1.01 4.42 1.10
Anglo-Australian 4.78 0.86 4.47 0.86 4.77 0.78 4.56 0.83 4.67 0.93
Aboriginal 3.39 1.10 3.49 1.26 3.41 0.99 3.06 1.24 3.29 1.30
 Academic Expectations of Australian Students 67

Results
Preliminary analyses indicated no effect for participant gender nor interactions involving
participant gender, hence this between-subjects factor was not included in the following
analyses. Furthermore, participant ethnicity was not included as a between-subjects fac-
tor because there were too few participants from minority ethnic backgrounds to enable
comparison. Mauchly’s test was significant for a number of effects, indicating violation
of the assumption of sphericity. Following Tabachnick and Fidell (2001), the epsilon-
adjusted tests of significance (Greenhouse–Geisser) are reported for those effects in
which the sphericity assumption was not met.
As is evident from the descriptive statistics presented in Table 2, there were differ-
ences in trainee-teachers’ expectancies for students from different ethnic backgrounds.
In particular, ratings for the Chinese student were high and ratings for the Aboriginal
student were low. We conducted a repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA)
with within-subjects factors of ethnic group (Chinese-Australian, Anglo-Australian and
Aboriginal Australian), domain (mathematics and English), and item (talent, effort, cur-
rent performance, future performance and career). There were significant main effects
for student, F(1, 204) = 198.08, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.58, for domain, F(1, 143) = 77.52,
p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.35, and for item, F(3, 439) = 22.52, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.14. In addi-
tion, all possible interactions were significant at p < 0.001: for student and domain, F(2,
217) = 126.28, ηp2 = 0.47; for student and item, F(6, 802) = 35.49, ηp2 = 0.20; for
domain and item, F(3, 494) = 6.89, ηp2 = 0.05; and finally, for student by domain by
item, F(6, 907) = 17.40, ηp2 = 0.11.
Additional item-level analyses were conducted to investigate this three-way interac-
tion. We conducted a three (ethnic group: Chinese-Australian, Anglo-Australian and
Aboriginal Australian) by two (domain: mathematics and English) repeated-measures
ANOVA for each item. The results revealed a consistent pattern for the domain of mathe-
matics with higher expectancies for Chinese compared with both Anglo-Australian and
Aboriginal students, and higher expectancies for Anglo-Australian students compared
with Aboriginal students. In contrast, while trainee-teachers had consistently lower expec-
tancies for the Aboriginal Australian student for the domain of English, there was little
differentiation between the Chinese-Australian and Anglo-Australian students with the
exception of Item 1 (English talent) and Item 2 (effort in English): the Anglo-Australian
student was rated higher for English talent while the Chinese-Australian student was rated
higher for effort.
An additional repeated-measures ANOVA showed significant differences in the
amount of academic support that teachers perceived each student receives from their
families, F(1, 213) = 222.80, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.61. Post-hoc comparisons (paired-sample
t-tests with a family-wise correction for the number of comparisons) revealed that trainee-
teachers perceived the Chinese student would receive significantly more family support
(mean [M] = 6.11, standard deviation [SD] = 1.02) than would the Anglo-Australian stu-
dent (M = 5.17, SD = 1.00; t(143) = 12.09, p < 0.001, d = 0.93) and Aboriginal student
(M = 3.72, SD = 1.33; t(143) = 17.23, p < 0.001, d = 2.02). Similarly, trainee-teachers
perceived that the Anglo-Australian student would receive more family support than
would the Aboriginal student, t(143) = 12.37, p < 0.001, d = 1.23.

Discussion
This initial study found differences in trainee-teachers’ expectancies for students from
different ethnic backgrounds. In particular, ratings for the Chinese student were high
68 J. Dandy et al.

and ratings for the Aboriginal student were low. Of particular note, the results revealed
a consistent pattern for the domain of mathematics, with higher expectancies for Chi-
nese students compared with both Anglo-Australian and Aboriginal students, and higher
expectancies for Anglo-Australian students compared with Aboriginal students. The ste-
reotype in respect of Anglo-Australian versus Chinese-Australian students is similar to
that observed by Dandy and Nettelbeck (2000) in their study of university students
from Anglo-Australian and Chinese-Australian backgrounds. In contrast, while trainee-
teachers had consistently lower expectancies for the typical Aboriginal Australian
student for the domain of English, there was little differentiation between the Chinese-
Australian and Anglo-Australian students in this subject area. Exceptions with respect
to English were that the Anglo-Australian student was rated higher for English talent
while the Chinese-Australian student was rated higher for effort.
It is important to recall that the participants were requested to identify characteristics
of a hypothetical but typical member of each ethnic group. This methodology is
designed to elicit stereotypical expectations, if they exist. It could be objected that the
methodology would alert participants to the researchers’ focus and possibly induce
social desirability effects, whereby participants would seek to avoid appearing to hold
stereotypes or prejudices. The findings confirm that individuals in training to become
teachers are aware of the stereotypes and can apply them.
This does not confirm that participants will sustain these stereotypical expectations
in actual educational contexts. To address this possibility, in our next study we exam-
ined the expectations of experienced teachers.

Study 2: Academic Expectancies among Experienced Teachers

Method
Participants
Fifty-five experienced government school teachers (42 females and 13 males)
participated in Study 2. Of these, 57% were secondary school teachers (n = 31), approx-
imately 33% were primary school teachers (n = 18) and the remainder (10%, n = 5)
taught at the pre-primary level. Ages ranged from 25 to 60 years, with a roughly equal
distribution of ages across this range (see Table 1 for further details). The majority
(87%) identified themselves as Australian (74% were born in Australia) and 98% spoke
English at home. Teachers had, on average, 16.22 years of teaching experience
(SD = 9.50, range = 0.25–40 years).
Teachers were asked to rate the ethnocultural diversity of the schools in which they
taught, on a five-point scale ranging from one (“monocultural”) to five (“multicultural;
at least 50% of students from ethnic minorities”); approximately 20% indicated that the
school in which they currently taught was monocultural and 56% indicated that
20–30% of the students in their current school were from minority ethnic groups (most
frequent categories).

Measures
Participants completed the expectancies measure as in Study 1 and also supplied demo-
graphic data pertaining to age, gender, cultural background, teaching level, teaching
experience, and perceived ethnic diversity of current school.
 Academic Expectations of Australian Students 69

Procedure
Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the UWA Human Research Ethics
Committee. Teachers participating in professional development sessions at a metropoli-
tan university were invited to participate. Those who agreed completed the question-
naire package during a session break and returned it to the researchers at the end of the
session. Questionnaire administration was approximately 30 minutes.

Results
Preliminary analyses indicated no effects involving participant gender, and hence this
factor was not included in the following analyses. Furthermore, participant ethnicity
was not included as a between-subjects factor because there were too few members of
ethnic minorities for comparison. As in Study 1, Mauchly’s test of sphericity was sig-
nificant in some analyses, indicating that the correlations between all variables are not
equal. Consequently, the Greenhouse–Geisser epsilon-corrected degrees of freedom are
presented for these comparisons.
The means and standard deviations for teachers’ expectancies are presented in Table 3.
A repeated-measures ANOVA with within-subjects factors of ethnic group of student
(Chinese-Australian, Anglo-Australian and Aboriginal Australian), domain (mathematics
and English) and item (talent, effort, current performance, future performance and career)
revealed significant main effects for student, F(2, 86) = 131.14, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.71, for
domain, F(1, 54) = 52.12, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.49, and for item, F(3, 174) = 18.40,
p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.25. There were also significant interactions between student and
domain, F(2, 90) = 33.17, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.38, and between student and item, F(5, 275)
= 20.23, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.27. Finally, there was a significant three-way interaction
among student, domain and item, F(6, 305) = 4.79, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.08.
We conducted additional item-level analyses to interpret the three-way interaction. A
three (ethnic group: Chinese-Australian, Anglo-Australian and Aboriginal Australian) by
two (domain: mathematics and English) repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted for
each item. The results revealed a consistent pattern for the domain of mathematics: teach-
ers had higher expectancies for the Chinese student compared with both the
Anglo-Australian and Aboriginal students and, in turn, higher expectancies for the Anglo-
Australian student compared with the Aboriginal student. In contrast, when comparing the
Chinese and Anglo-Australian students in the domain of English, teachers had higher
expectancies for the Chinese student for effort expended only. However, they consistently
demonstrated lower expectancies for the Aboriginal student for all English items.
The results of a repeated-measures ANOVA showed that teachers differed in their
perceptions of how much family support each student would receive, F(2, 88) = 131.05,
p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.71. Post-hoc comparisons (paired-sample t-tests with a family-wise
correction for the number of comparisons) demonstrated that teachers expected the Chi-
nese student (M = 6.27, SD = 0.85) would receive more support for their studies than the
Anglo-Australian student (M = 5.11, SD = 1.01; t(54) = 8.67, p < 0.001, d = 1.24) and
the Aboriginal student (M = 3.47, SD = 1.34; t(54) = 13.55, p < 0.001, d = 2.50). In turn,
the Anglo-Australian student was expected to receive more support than the Aboriginal
student, t(54) = 9.47, p < 0.001, d = 1.38.
Finally, teachers’ expectancies did not vary based on the school composition in
terms of student diversity. A repeated-measures ANOVA with school context as a
between-subjects factor (five levels) showed no main effect, F(4, 50) = 0.86, p = 0.49,
nor significant interactions between context and student, domain, or item.
 70
J. Dandy et al.

Table 3. Teachers’ expectancies for performance in mathematics and English for Australian students from Chinese, Anglo-Australian and Aboriginal backgrounds
(N = 55).
Current Future
Talent Effort performance performance Career
Ethnic group M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD
Mathematics
Chinese 5.35 1.09 6.20 0.87 6.01 1.13 5.78 1.07 5.82 1.07
Anglo-Australian 4.58 0.85 4.51 1.03 4.66 0.85 4.25 1.13 4.47 1.05
Aboriginal 3.89 1.12 3.53 1.18 3.44 1.04 2.65 1.24 3.00 1.23
English
Chinese 4.45 1.20 5.73 1.10 4.91 1.04 4.73 1.13 4.85 1.16
Anglo-Australian 4.73 0.87 4.56 1.10 4.66 0.85 4.25 1.13 4.47 1.10
Aboriginal 3.49 1.03 3.31 1.09 3.23 1.11 2.69 1.21 3.11 1.18
 Academic Expectations of Australian Students 71

Discussion
The results for the teachers’ expectancies were very similar to those obtained with trainee-
teachers. Chinese students were viewed as more talented academically—particularly in
mathematics—and as working harder than their Anglo-Australian and Aboriginal peers.
Aboriginal students were perceived as lower in ability and effort in both academic
domains, compared with their peers. Indeed, only the Aboriginal student consistently
received ratings below the midpoint of the scale. Although the Anglo-Australian student
was often rated significantly lower than the Chinese student, mean expectancies for the
former were still around the midpoint of the scale or what might be considered “average”
performance. In contrast, the expectancies for the Aboriginal student were not simply
lower than those for the Chinese and Anglo-Australian students but were also consistently
“below average” in absolute terms. Compared with Anglo-Australian families, the practis-
ing teachers rated Chinese families as being more supportive of study and Aboriginal fam-
ilies as less supportive. Thus, the overall representations are those of high ability, high
achievement and hard working within a supportive family context for the Chinese student,
and of low ability, low achievement and little effort within an unsupportive environment
for the Aboriginal student. This pattern was observed among teachers who worked in
ethnically diverse schools as well as monocultural schools.
This stereotyped perception of Aboriginal families as “not supportive of school-
work” is not consistent with empirical evidence. McInerney and McInerney (2002)
found that Aboriginal parents rated the importance of schooling as highly as non-
Aboriginal parents. It is possible that a supportive home environment is conceptualised
more broadly by teachers than parents’ value of schooling, and includes, for example,
active parental involvement in tasks such as homework. Nonetheless, this perception of
Aboriginal families is strikingly similar to the stereotype of Maori families in New
Zealand reported by Rubie-Davies et al. (2006). It would seem that for these Indigenous
groups there is a strong implicit societal stereotype about education and achievement
that is shared by teachers.
Taken together, then, the evidence from Studies 1 and 2 demonstrates that both cur-
rent and future teachers hold differential expectations for students based on demo-
graphic characteristics, such as ethnicity. Despite differences in classroom experience,
these expectancies were remarkably similar across the two samples. Moreover, the
obtained effects were large, particularly in the domain of mathematics. However, it is
important to acknowledge that these expectations do not simply reflect erroneous stereo-
types. As noted earlier, there is considerable evidence that Aboriginal students have
lower average academic achievement than other groups (McInerney, 2003, 2008;
McInerney & McInerney, 2002; Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Train-
ing and Youth Affairs, 2000), and some evidence of higher achievement among Asian
Australian students (Dandy & Nettelbeck, 2002; Khoo & Birrell, 2002; McInerney,
2008). Consequently, these expectancies are consistent with achievement data that
would be available to both experienced teachers and trainee-teachers. As researchers
have noted, teacher expectancies are often accurate reflections of genuine differences in
academic effort and performance (Jussim et al., 1996; Madon et al., 1998).
The expectancies we observed in Studies 1 and 2 are important because it is evident
that some students are more vulnerable to expectancy effects than others. In particular,
academically stigmatised groups, such as some ethnic minorities and girls in
mathematics, tend to be more susceptible (Hudley & Graham, 2001; Jussim et al.,
1996; McKown & Weinstein, 2002; Rubie-Davies et al., 2006; Weinstein et al., 2004).
72 J. Dandy et al.

As suggested earlier, this may be because members of these groups are aware of the
negative stereotypes, which invokes stereotype threat. Hence, it is important to investi-
gate whether Western Australian school students themselves share the stereotypes found
in our first two studies.

Study 3: School Students’ Expectations for their Own and their Ethnic Group’s
Performance in Mathematics and English
The aim of our third study was to investigate expectancies for the self and for one’s
own ethnic group for academic performance among Western Australian students. We
chose to focus on students in the middle years of schooling (Grades 6–9) because
research suggests that transition from primary to secondary school may be critical
in children’s development of self-perceptions and attitudes (Hirsch & Rapkin, 1987;
Midgley, Feldlaufer, & Eccles, 1989; Seidman, Aber, Allen, & French, 1996), and in
the Australian education system primary school students are typically provided with lit-
tle feedback concerning their academic performance. This also means that secondary
school teachers have little information on which to base their expectations of incoming
students. These factors suggest that students in these grade levels may be more vulnera-
ble to teachers’ expectations and negative stereotypes about their ethnic group.
Based on societal stereotypes and the findings of the first two studies, we expected
that, compared with the dominant cultural group of Anglo-Australians, Aboriginal
Australian students would show lower expectations for their group’s academic perfor-
mance, and students from Asian backgrounds would show higher expectations for their
group’s performance, particularly in mathematics.

Method
Participants
Data were obtained from 516 (55% female) Year 6–9 Australian government school stu-
dents aged between 10 and 15 years (M = 12.19 years, SD = 1.36). The sampled schools
(eight primary and three secondary) were situated in metropolitan Perth areas ranging
from low to high in SES. Students’ ethnic backgrounds were determined using self-
identification from the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (Phinney, 1992). At the
beginning of this questionnaire, respondents are presented with a brief definition of eth-
nicity and ethnic identity, including examples that were adapted for the Australian con-
text. Respondents then indicate their ethnic group or groups in a free-response format.
Forty-five per cent of the sample identified as being from Anglo-Australian back-
grounds (i.e., Australian with British cultural heritage), the remainder was British
(n = 55), Italian (n = 37), Vietnamese (n = 21), Aboriginal (n = 16), Portuguese
(n = 15), Chinese (n = 12), Malaysian (n = 12) and Serbian (n = 8). The majority (84%)
of the students were born in Australia.

Measures
Participants completed an expectancies measure, similar to that used in the first two
studies, for themselves and their ethnic group. They were first asked to complete the
expectancies measure for their own academic performance. An example item is “How
much natural mathematical talent do you have?” Responses were made on a seven-point
 Academic Expectations of Australian Students 73

scale ranging from one (“I have very little maths talent”) to seven (“I have a lot of
maths talent”). In addition, participants completed an item concerning how much inter-
est they had in mathematics and in English.
Following completion of the expectancies measure for self, participants were pre-
sented with an explanation of ethnicity so as to record their ethnic group (or groups).
They were then instructed to “Think about other kids from your ethnic group and how
they do at their schoolwork”. Participants then completed the expectancies measure,
with respect to their nominated ethnic group.

Procedure
After ethical approval for the project was obtained from the UWA Human Research
Ethics Committee, government schools were invited to participate in the project. Princi-
pals of 11 schools agreed to participate. Students were given a brief oral summary of
the project and presented with an information letter and consent form. Those who
returned consent forms in the affirmative (parents and children) participated in the pro-
ject. The expectancies measure and other questions were subsequently administered in a
school classroom with the assistance of research staff. On average, the administration
took approximately 30 minutes.

Results
Students’ Expectancies for their Own Ethnic Group
All participants completed expectancies for their own ethnic group (self-identified). In
order to compare with data for trainee-teachers and teachers, the group expectancies
from those students who were from Asian (Chinese, Vietnamese and Malaysian),
Anglo-Australian and Aboriginal Australian cultural backgrounds are included in the
following analysis (n = 291).3 This sample of 45 Asian students, 230 Anglo-Australian
students and 16 Aboriginal students did not differ from the full sample in other demo-
graphic characteristics such as gender or age.
As is evident from the descriptive statistics presented in Table 4, students’ group
expectancies were similar to those of trainee-teachers and teachers, with high expecta-
tions among Asian students and low expectations among Aboriginal students.
Preliminary analyses revealed no main effect for participant gender or significant
interactions between gender and ethnicity. A repeated-measures ANOVA was conducted
with ethnic group (Asian, Anglo-Australian and Aboriginal) as the between-subjects
factor. The within-subjects factors were domain (mathematics and English) and item
(talent, effort, current performance, future performance and career). As with previous
analyses, the epsilon-adjusted tests of significance are reported when the assumption of
sphericity was violated. As there were unequal numbers of cases across cells and
because it was assumed that differences in cell sizes reflected real processes in the
populations sampled, a regression approach was used. Hence, each cell mean was given
equal weight regardless of its sample size and each main effect and interaction was
assessed after adjustments were made for all other main effects and interactions
(Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001).
The results revealed significant main effects for ethnic group, F(2, 288) = 8.71,
p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.06, for domain, F(1, 288) = 4.01, p < 0.05, ηp2 = 0.01, and for item,
F(4, 1017) = 14.45, p < 0. 001, ηp2 = 0.05. There were significant interactions between
domain and ethnic group, F(2, 288) = 13.23, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.08, and between item
 74
J. Dandy et al.

Table 4. School students’ expectancies for their own ethnic group: selected subgroups (N = 291).
Current Future
Talent Effort performance performance Career
Group M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD
Mathematics
Asian 5.76 0.88 6.00 1.28 5.56 0.97 5.78 0.85 5.78 0.90
Anglo-Australian 4.93 1.16 5.20 1.24 4.90 1.11 4.94 1.19 4.94 1.18
Aboriginal 4.25 1.34 5.13 1.50 4.12 1.15 4.13 1.31 4.44 1.36
English
Asian 4.73 1.18 5.69 1.29 4.87 1.20 5.29 1.10 5.09 1.18
Anglo-Australian 4.95 1.24 5.14 1.25 4.88 1.11 4.97 1.22 4.99 1.26
Aboriginal 4.06 1.65 5.06 1.57 4.44 1.41 4.63 1.71 4.69 1.45
 Academic Expectations of Australian Students 75

and ethnic group, F(7, 1017) = 2.42, p < 0.05, ηp2 = 0.02. Finally, there was a very
small but significant three-way interaction among ethnic group, domain and item,
F(7, 1048) = 2.08, p < 0.05, ηp2 = 0.01.
One-way ANOVAs were conducted to explore the ethnicity effect. Due to the num-
ber of analyses (10 analyses) a critical alpha of 0.005 was set. At this level the only
significant differences lay in the mathematics variables, such that Asian students had
higher expectancies for their group than Anglo-Australian students had for their group;
Anglo-Australian students, in turn, had higher expectancies than did Aboriginal stu-
dents. Specifically, post-hoc tests (Tukey’s Honestly Significant Difference) showed that
Asian students had higher group expectancies than did Anglo-Australian and Aboriginal
students for mathematics talent, mathematics effort, current and future mathematics per-
formance, and mathematics career. Anglo-Australian students had higher group expec-
tancies than Aboriginal students for current and future mathematics performance. There
were no significant ethnic group differences for English items at p < 0.005.

Students’ Expectancies for their Own Performance

In addition, we conducted analyses of students’ self-expectancies. The personal expec-
tancy items were the same as those for group expectancies: talent, effort, current perfor-
mance, future performance and likelihood of obtaining a career; for mathematics and
English. An additional item referred to students’ reported interest in each domain. The
analyses were conducted with data from members of the larger ethnocultural groups in
the sample, for whom we had complete data for self-expectancies (N = 402). The groups
were Asian (n = 44), Anglo-Australian (n = 228), Aboriginal (n = 14), Italian (n = 37),
British (n = 55) and Portuguese (n = 15). As with the previous analyses involving group
expectancies, we used the regression approach to account for unequal numbers of cases
across cells. The group means and standard deviations are presented in Table 5.
Preliminary analyses (repeated-measures ANOVAs) revealed no main effects for par-
ticipant gender or interactions between participant gender and ethnicity. We then con-
ducted repeated-measures ANOVAs to examine ethnic group differences in self-
expectancies. The between-subjects factor was ethnic group (six groups) and the within-
subjects factors were domain (mathematics and English) and item (talent, effort, current
performance, future performance, career and interest). The epsilon-adjusted tests of
significance are reported when the assumption of sphericity was violated. There were
significant main effects for ethnic group, F(5, 387) = 4.55, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.06, for
domain, F(1, 387) = 4.56, p < 0.05, ηp2 = 0.01, and for item, F(4, 1390) = 35.62,
p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.08. There were also significant interactions between item and ethnic
group, F (18, 1390) = 2.45, p < 0.01, ηp2 = 0.03, and between domain and item,
F(4, 1688) = 5.44, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.01.
These effects were followed up with univariate analyses conducted for each item.
These analyses demonstrated that the ethnic group differences primarily lay in mathe-
matics and generally showed above-average expectancies among Asian students and
very low expectancies among Aboriginal students, as is evident from the descriptive
statistics presented in Table 5. With the more stringent alpha value of 0.005 to correct
for the number of tests, three mathematics items differed significantly among the ethnic
groups: mathematics future performance, F(5, 387) = 5.58, ηp2 = 0.07, mathematics
career, F(5, 387) = 4.43, ηp2 = 0.05, and interest in mathematics, F(5, 387) = 4.85, ηp2
= 0.06. Post-hoc tests (Tukey’s Honestly Significant Difference) revealed that these dif-
ferences lay primarily in higher self-expectancies among Asian students compared with
 76

Table 5. Self-expectancies for performance in mathematics and English among students from diverse ethnic backgrounds.
J. Dandy et al.

Ethnic group
Anglo-Australian Aboriginal (n = Portuguese (n
Asian (n = 44) (n = 228) 14) Italian (n = 37) British (n = 55) = 15)
Domain expectancy M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD M SD
Mathematics
Talent 5.27 1.15 4.53 1.49 3.86 1.70 4.49 1.59 4.51 1.65 4.07 1.53
Effort 5.57 1.65 5.66 1.15 4.50 1.74 5.51 1.35 5.58 1.27 5.60 1.50
Current performance 5.11 1.04 4.68 1.24 4.29 1.64 4.41 1.30 4.51 1.27 4.80 1.52
Future performance 5.43a 1.09 4.68b,c 1.30 3.57b,d 1.45 4.57b 1.21 4.75b,c 1.31 4.20b 1.47
Career 5.34a 1.05 4.66b 1.39 3.86b 1.61 4.54 1.39 4.84 1.26 3.87b 1.60
Interest 4.93a 1.88 3.65b 1.70 3.43 1.70 4.30 1.76 3.67b 1.80 3.53 1.73
English
Talent 5.32 1.31 4.97 1.48 4.43 1.28 4.46 1.48 5.09 1.55 4.33 1.54
Effort 5.66 1.45 5.58 1.27 4.36 1.50 5.27 1.56 5.62 1.34 5.53 1.30
Current performance 5.05 1.06 4.68 1.38 4.57 1.50 4.22 1.42 4.64 1.65 4.73 1.16
Future performance 5.14 1.25 4.68 1.51 4.71 1.73 4.24 1.52 4.91 1.52 4.73 1.44
Career 5.25 1.18 4.83 1.48 4.64 1.65 4.54 1.44 5.07 1.46 4.47 1.51
Interest 5.18 1.67 4.54 1.79 4.07 1.94 4.57 1.98 4.65 1.74 3.60 1.50
Note: Means with different subscript letters differ at p < 0.005.
 Academic Expectations of Australian Students 77

the other groups. Asian students had higher self-expectancies for: mathematics future
performance compared with Anglo-Australian, Aboriginal, Italian and Portuguese stu-
dents; mathematics career compared with Anglo-Australian, Aboriginal and Portuguese
students; and interest in mathematics compared with Anglo-Australian and British stu-
dents. In addition, Anglo-Australian and British students reported higher self-expectan-
cies for their future performance in mathematics compared with Aboriginal students.

Discussion
School students’ group expectancies were consistent with those we found among teach-
ers and trainee-teachers, although there were not as many group differences among stu-
dents. Asian students demonstrated higher expectancies for their group’s performance in
mathematics compared with Anglo-Australian and Aboriginal students. Anglo-Austra-
lian students also had higher group expectancies for current and future mathematics
future performance than did Aboriginal students. There were few group differences for
English items, the only significant difference being higher group expectancies for effort
among Asian students compared with Anglo-Australian students. These expectancies
suggest that Asian students also hold schemas of their own ethnic group as high achiev-
ers in mathematics and hard-working, while Aboriginal students perceive their group to
be low achieving.
Although the pattern of group expectancies was consistent with that observed among
teachers and trainee-teachers, it is worth noting that students’ expectancies were gener-
ally higher than those of teachers and trainee-teachers, and above the midpoint of the
seven-point scale. That is, on average, no group of students indicated that their group
was “below average”. This was particularly so for effort; all students indicated that mem-
bers of their ethnic group expend considerable effort in their studies. It may be that chil-
dren are more aware of their own group’s abilities and efforts than are adults, simply
because of proximity, or children may have a less informed basis for social comparison.
Jussim and Eccles (1992) also found that teachers’ perceptions of student effort are con-
siderably different from students’ self-reports. Moreover, Jussim and Eccles’ (1992)
results showed that teachers’ perceptions of student effort are primarily driven by stu-
dents’ past performances (i.e., achievement) and are often inaccurate.
Students’ expectancies for their own performance showed the same pattern as that
observed for group expectancies, although there were fewer significant group differ-
ences. The main differences were again found in mathematics, and primarily showed
higher expectancies among the Asian students compared with the other groups.
We should acknowledge that, given the small group sizes and associated highly
unequal cell sizes, our minority ethnic groups may not be representative of the commu-
nities of interest. However, these unequal group sizes reflect the proportions in the Wes-
tern Australian population, and the findings of significant group differences suggest that
the results were sufficiently robust despite these factors. Nonetheless, there is a need for
larger studies of Australian ethnic minority children’s expectancies, particularly those of
Aboriginal children. In addition, larger studies of minority ethnic children should allow
for investigation of within-group, as well as between-group, differences.

General Discussion
We found that teachers, trainee-teachers and students held expectancies for academic
performance consistent with community stereotypes. Asian students were expected to
78 J. Dandy et al.

perform better in mathematics and to study harder than Anglo-Australian and Aborigi-
nal students, and in turn Anglo-Australian students were expected to perform better in
mathematics than Aboriginal students. These stereotypes were generally consistent
across the three samples and matched societal stereotypes about group differences in
educational achievement in the Australian context.
These stereotypes—particularly those that were negative—have potentially damag-
ing consequences. Previous research has indicated that teachers’ perceptions of their stu-
dents influence their behaviour towards them, may bias their evaluations of them, and
predict students’ achievement levels (Madon et al., 1997; Rubie-Davies et al., 2006;
Smith et al., 1999; Weinstein et al., 2004). Findings from previous research suggest
that, in some cases, student ethnicity is a factor in teachers’ expectations (Hsia & Peng,
1998; Rubie-Davies et al., 2006; St George, 1983). Consequently, our results suggest
that Australian teachers have stereotypes of students that could be deleterious to student
outcomes. For some children from minority backgrounds in the mid-range of student
performance, this may mean that evaluations are depressed relative to potential; for
some in the lower range of student performance, the negative expectancy may influence
teachers’ decisions to refer the child for remedial intervention; and for others in the
higher range, negative expectancies may make them less likely to be selected as
candidates for gifted education.
In addition, the results with trainee-teachers suggest that they form these stereotypes
before they have any classroom experience. This highlights important considerations for
teacher education. Inadequate preparation of new teachers has been identified as a con-
tributing factor in the over-representation of minority children in remedial special edu-
cation but also as an area in which there are prospects for beneficial change to promote
more culturally sensitive and reflective practices (Artiles, Kozleski, Trent, Osher, &
Ortiz, 2010; Blanchett, 2006; Irvine, 2012).
Moreover, there is evidence that some ethnic minorities are more vulnerable to
teacher expectancy effects than other groups (Jussim & Harber, 2005; McKown &
Weinstein, 2002). McKown and Weinstein (2002) proposed that this is due to stereotype
threat, in which activation of a negative social stereotype results in impaired perfor-
mance (Ryan & Ryan, 2005; Steele & Aronson, 1995). Our findings demonstrated that
ethnic minority and majority culture students shared the societal stereotypes and had
comparable expectations for their own performance. That is, the students in our research
demonstrated awareness of these stereotypes and may have been engaging in self-
stereotyping. While this could be advantageous for Asian students for whom the stereo-
type was positive, it is possible that Aboriginal students are vulnerable to the negative
consequences of stereotype threat. This may be further compounded by the effects of
SES on educational experiences: Aboriginal Australian students are more likely to
attend low-SES schools with attendant negative stereotypes and self-beliefs. In future
studies, researchers should try to examine the potentially mediating effects of SES on
the ethnicity–expectations relationship.
It could also be argued that the effort stereotype can be disadvantageous to Asian
students in some contexts. Research in attribution theory and educational processes has
shown that students’ expectations about their future performance are affected by the
type of explanation they draw upon to account for a recent performance (for a review,
see Durkin, 1995). For example, if a student believes (or is led to believe) that her
achievement is due to effort (she worked very hard) this is encouraging, but not neces-
sarily as encouraging as the belief that the outcome was due to ability. Effort may be
regarded as commendable, but it is a characteristic that could fluctuate in the future,
 Academic Expectations of Australian Students 79

whereas ability is viewed as inherent and relatively stable. People who are regarded as
achieving primarily on the basis of effort are vulnerable to the perception that their
energies are high but their talents limited. On the other hand, there are also risks that
ostensibly positive stereotypes (“hard working Asian student”) may result in some
teachers failing to detect special needs; for example, Hui-Michael and García (2009)
found, in American schools, that teachers were less likely to attend to struggling Asian
students unless they also manifested behavioural problems.
In our studies with trainee-teachers and teachers we utilised hypothetical student
vignettes: participants were asked to make category-based judgements with little per-
sonal information concerning the student’s abilities, motivation or past performance.
This approach has strengths and weaknesses. It enables the isolation of the critical vari-
able of interest, ethnic background, but can be criticised for being lower in external
validity than other methods. In a genuine classroom situation teachers usually have
more than societal stereotypes to call upon in constructing expectations of their stu-
dents, and research has demonstrated that teachers generally form judgements based on
the personal characteristics of their students rather than their social group membership
(s) (for example, Jussim et al., 1996; Madon et al., 1998). Consequently, teacher expec-
tancy effects in genuine academic settings are usually weaker than they would appear
from responses to hypothetical student scenarios. Nonetheless they do occur, and are
more likely to occur when individuating information is not available. For example, in
the Australian school system, secondary school teachers are typically provided with lit-
tle information about incoming students’ abilities and performance. Moreover, they have
limited contact with students and consequently fewer opportunities in which to discover
students’ personal characteristics. Therefore, while expectancy effects in a genuine aca-
demic situation may be weak, they may still be present during the critical transition to
secondary schooling and have the potential to be deleterious to minority students’ per-
formance. To examine this more thoroughly, future studies should include investigations
of Australian teachers’ expectancies for their own students’ performance during this
early secondary school period.
The connection of teachers’ expectancies to students’ actual performance would also
allow for investigation of the accuracy of the stereotypes we observed. As noted earlier,
Aboriginal students have lower average academic achievement than other groups
(McInerney & McInerney, 2002). However, fewer data are available with respect to
other ethnic minority groups, such as Asian Australian students. In one of the few stud-
ies in this area, Dandy and Nettelbeck (2002) found that Chinese and Vietnamese
school children had higher mathematics achievement than their Anglo-Australian peers.
However, because this study utilised teacher ratings for the assessment of achievement,
it is difficult to determine whether the achievement differences are attributable to
genuine performance differences or simply reflect the social stereotypes evident in the
present research. A longitudinal investigation including standardised achievement tests
is required.
Finally, there is a need for more fine-grained analysis of academic expectancies for
different ethnic groups. Our broad “Asian Australian” categorisation for Study 3 might
mask important within-group differences in expectations, beliefs and performance. The
low self-expectations and group expectations for Portuguese students, a cultural group
that was not a focus of this study, also warrant further attention.
In conclusion, the present series of studies has shown that Western Australian trai-
nee-teachers, teachers and students share stereotypes about Aboriginal, Asian and
Anglo-Australian students’ academic performance. These stereotypes, particularly those
80 J. Dandy et al.

that were negative, could be deleterious to students’ performance. More research is

needed to explore their accuracy and impact, with the aim of identifying ways in which
we can enhance educational experiences and outcomes for all Australian children.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all participating students and teachers, and Kate Harwood for her
assistance with data collection and analysis. No restrictions have been imposed on free access to,
or publication of, the research data.

Funding
This research was supported by a UWA research grant to the first two authors. ].

Notes
1. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are the indigenous people of Australia who
constitute approximately 3% of the population (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2011).
2. This was achieved by converting scores to a common denominator of 35 for the analyses,
then dividing by their scale dimension (five or seven) for representation in the tables here.
3. Preliminary analyses revealed no significant differences between these groups in self-expec-
tancies and one small interaction effect (ethnic group by item, with Vietnamese participants
rating their group higher for effort than other items, compared with the other groups) for
group expectancies.

References
Anderson, R. (2012). Indigenous students’ increasing risk of grade repetition in early schooling.
Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 41, 196–207.
Artiles, A. J., Kozleski, E. B., Trent, S. C., Osher, D., & Ortiz, A. (2010). Justifying and explain-
ing disproportionality, 1968–2008: A critique of underlying views of culture. Exceptional
Children, 76, 279–299.
Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2011). Estimates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Austra-
lians, Cat. No. 3238.0.55.001. Canberra, ACT: Author. Retrieved from www.abs.gov.au
Baron, R. M., Tom, D. Y. H., & Cooper, H. M. (1985). Social class, race and teacher expecta-
tions. In J. B. Dusek (Ed.), Teacher expectancies (pp. 251–269). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Blanchett, W. J. (2006). Disproportionate representation of African American students in special
education: Acknowledging the role of white privilege and racism. Educational Researcher,
35(6), 24–28.
Cheryan, S., & Bodenhausen, G. (2000). When positive stereotypes threaten intellectual perfor-
mance: The psychological hazards of “model minority” status. Psychological Science, 11,
399–402.
Croizet, J., & Claire, T. (1998). Extending the concept of stereotype threat to social class: The
intellectual underperformance of students from low socio-economic backgrounds. Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 588–594.
Dandy, J., & Nettelbeck, T. (2000). The model student?: An investigation of Chinese Australian
students’ academic achievement, studying, and causal attributions for academic success and
failure. Australian Psychologist, 35, 208–215.
Dandy, J., & Nettelbeck, T. (2002). The relationship between IQ, homework, aspirations and aca-
demic achievement for Chinese, Vietnamese, and Anglo-Celtic Australian school children.
Educational Psychology, 22, 269–277.
DiGiacomo, M., Davidson, P. M., Abbott, P., Delaney, P., Dharmendra, T., McGrath, S. J., … &
Vásquez, F. (2013). Childhood disability in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples: A
literature review. International Journal for Equity in Health, 12, 7.
Durkin, K. (1995). Developmental social psychology: From infancy to old age. Oxford:
Blackwell.
 Academic Expectations of Australian Students 81

Eccles, J. (1988). Achievement beliefs and the environment, Final report to the National Institute
of Child Health and Development, Ann Arbor, MI. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associ-
ates.
Gonzales, P. M., Blanton, H., & Williams, K. J. (2002). The effects of stereotype threat and
double-minority status on the test performance of Latino women. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 28, 659–670.
Graham, L. J. (2012). Disproportionate over-representation of Indigenous students in New South
Wales government special schools. Cambridge Journal of Education, 42, 163–176.
Gray, M. C., Hunter, B., & Schwab, R. G. (2000). Trends in indigenous educational participation
and attainment, 1986–96. Australian Journal of Education, 44, 101–117.
Hirsch, B. J., & Rapkin, B. D. (1987). The transition to junior high school: A longitudinal study
of self-esteem, psychological symptomatology, school life, and social support. Child
Development, 58, 1235–1243.
Hsia, J., & Peng, S. S. (1998). Academic achievement and performance. In L. C. Lee & N. W. S.
Zane (Eds.), Handbook of Asian American psychology (pp. 325–357). Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Hudley, C., & Graham, S. (2001). Stereotypes of achievement striving among early adolescents.
Social Psychology of Education, 5, 210–224.
Hui-Michael, Y., & García, S. B. (2009). General educators’ perceptions and attributions about
Asian American students: Implications for special education referral. Multiple Voices for
Ethnically Diverse Exceptional Learners, 12, 21–37.
Irvine, J. J. (2012). Complex relationships between multicultural education and special education:
An African American perspective. Journal of Teacher Education, 63, 268–274.
Jussim, L., & Eccles, J. (1992). Teacher expectations II: Construction and reflection of student
achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 947–961.
Jussim, L., Eccles, J., & Madon, S. (1996). Social perception, social stereotypes, and teacher
expectations: Accuracy and the quest for the powerful self-fulfilling prophecy. In M. P. Zanna
(Ed.), Experimental social psychology (pp. 281–388). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Jussim, L., & Harber, K. D. (2005). Teacher expectations and self-fulfilling prophecies: Knowns
and unknowns, resolved and unresolved controversies. Personality and Social Psychology
Review, 9, 131–155.
Khoo, S., & Birrell, B. (2002). The progress of young people of migrant origin in Australia.
People and Place, 10, 30–44.
Madon, S., Jussim, L., & Eccles, J. (1997). In search of the powerful self-fulfilling prophecy.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 791–809.
Madon, S., Jussim, L., Keiper, S., Eccles, J., Smith, A., & Palumbo, P. (1998). The accuracy and
power of sex, social class, and ethnic stereotypes: A naturalistic study in person perception.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 1304–1318.
McInerney, D. M. (2003). Motivational goals, self-concept, and sense of self—what predicts
academic achievement? Similarities and differences between Aboriginal and Anglo Austra-
lians in high school settings. In H. W. Marsh, R. G. Craven, & D. M. McInerney (Eds.),
International advances in self research (pp. 315–346). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.
McInerney, D. M. (2008). Personal investment, culture and learning: Insights into school
achievement across Anglo, Aboriginal, Asian and Lebanese students in Australia.
International Journal of Psychology, 43, 870–879.
McInerney, D. M. (2012). Conceptual and methodological challenges in multiple goal research
among remote and very remote Indigenous Australian students. Applied Psychology: An
International Review, 61, 634–668.
McInerney, D. M., Hinkley, J., Dowson, M., & Van Etten, S. (1998). Aboriginal, Anglo, and
immigrant Australian students’ motivational beliefs about personal academic success: Are
there cultural differences? Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 621–629.
McInerney, D. M., & McInerney, V. (2002). Cultural dimensions of effective learning. In D. M.
McInerney & V. McInerney (Eds.), Educational psychology (3rd ed., pp. 325–348). Frenchs
Forest, NSW: Pearson Education Australia.
McKown, C., & Weinstein, R. S. (2002). Modeling the role of child ethnicity and gender in
children’s differential response to teacher expectations. Journal of Applied Social Psychology,
32, 159–184.
82 J. Dandy et al.

Mellor, S., & Corrigan, M. (2004). The case for change: A review of contemporary research on
Indigenous education outcomes. Camberwell, VIC: Australian Council for Educational
Research.
Midgley, C., Feldlaufer, H., & Eccles, J. S. (1989). Student/teacher relations and attitudes toward
mathematics before and after the transition to junior high school. Child Development, 60,
981–982.
Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training, and Youth Affairs. (2000). National
report on schooling in Australia. Retrieved from http://online.curriculum.edu.au/anr2000/
Phinney, J. (1992). The Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure: A new scale for use with diverse
groups. Journal of Adolescent Research, 7, 156–176.
Rosenthal, R., & Jacobson, L. (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom: Teacher expectation and
pupils’ intellectual development. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
Rubie-Davies, C., Hattie, J., & Hamilton, R. (2006). Expecting the best for students: Teacher
expectations and academic outcomes. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 76,
429–444.
Ryan, K. E., & Ryan, A. M. (2005). Psychological processes underlying stereotype threat and
standardized math test performance. Educational Psychologist, 40, 53–63.
Seidman, E., Aber, J. L., Allen, L., & French, S. E. (1996). The impact of the transition to high
school on the self-system and perceived social context of poor urban youth. American
Journal of Community Psychology, 24, 489–515.
Smith, A. E., Jussim, L., & Eccles, J. (1999). Do self-fulfilling prophecies accumulate, dissipate,
or remain stable over time? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 548–565.
Spencer, S. J., Steele, C. M., & Quinn, D. M. (1999). Stereotype threat and women’s math
performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35, 4–28.
St. George, A. (1983). Teacher expectations and perceptions of Polynesian and Pakeha pupils and
the relationship to classroom behaviour and school achievement. British Journal of
Educational Psychology, 53, 48–59.
Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of
African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 797–811.
Sweller, N., Graham, L. J., & Van Bergen, P. (2012). The minority report: Disproportionate
representation in Australia’s largest education system. Exceptional Children, 79, 107–125.
Tabachnick, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (2001). Using multivariate statistics (4th ed.). Boston, MA:
Allyn and Bacon.
Verkuyten, M. (2001). Global self-esteem, ethnic self-esteem and family integrity: Turkish and
Dutch early adolescents in The Netherlands. International Journal of Behavioral
Development, 25, 357–366.
Verkuyten, M. (2004). Ethnic identity and social context. In M. Bennett & F. Sani (Eds.), The
development of the social self (pp. 189–218). Hove: Psychology Press.
Weinstein, R. S., Gregory, A., & Strambler, M. J. (2004). Intractable self-fulfilling prophecies.
Fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education. American Psychologist, 59, 511–520.