New faces in the classroom : teachers' perceptions of students' academic behaviors by nativity and ethnoracial origin

Abstract

A substantial literature has drawn inconsistent conclusions about bias in teachers’ perceptions of minority students and girls. Although the number of immigrant students in U.S. schools is increasing rapidly, research on teachers’ perceptions of foreign-born students is lacking. Using a nationally representative sample of U.S. high school students from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002, this work evaluates teachers’ perceptions of academic behavior by student nativity and ethnoracial identity. Net of objective criteria, teachers disproportionally perceive students as hardworking or passive in ways conforming to ethnic and immigrant stereotypes. These appraisals are highly subject-specific, racialized, and gendered. This work has important implications for the assimilation of immigrant students into the U.S. educational system.