teacher expectancy research

[Kathleen Cushman <kcushman@ZIPLINK.NET>]

This might add to the conversation, from a piece I wrote for the Annenberg
Challenge Journal (HQed at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at
Brown):

What teachers expect of students has more effect than any other factor on
what they achieve--no matter what the teaching method they employ. A 1975
ethnographic study of a kindergarten class in an inner-city school showed
that
within eight days the teacher had grouped the children--not by academic
indicators, but according to skin color, behavior, clothing, hygiene, and
previous experience with siblings. Subsequent academic placement tests bore
out the teacher's expectations, and by the end of first grade the teacher's
initial expectations were virtually set in stone. (Rist, "Student Social
Class and Teacher Expectations," 1975, Harvard Education Review Reprint
Series, 50)

In another classic study, elementary school teachers in an inner city
school were given a randomly selected list of their students and told that
these children were predicted to blossom academically in the coming year.
Sure enough, in a year's time the identified students had shown marked
gains-children who were Latino and African-American even more than those
who were white and of Asian descent. ((Pygmalion in the Classroom, New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968)

Another researcher, for 20 years, followed 260 children from a housing
project in Ypsilanti, Michigan, half of whom had enrolled at ages three and
four in a preschool enrichment program aimed at internalizing high life
expectations for themselves. Immediate IQ test gains by the Head Start
group evened
out by fourth grade; but later, these students showed lower rates of
juvenile delinquency and teen-age pregnancy and higher employment rates.
(Weikert, "Research and Related Issues: Interactive Instructional Model,"
1987. ERIC document 297873)

Asked to think about how another's expectations influenced their own
personal development for better or worse, teachers in "critical friends
groups" at many Challenge schools are reflecting on the power of their own
actions, using questions like these:

-- What are your expectations for your students?
-- What expectations do you believe your colleagues hold?
-- How do those expectations fit with the expectations of your schools? Why?
-- What can be done to raise your own expectations? Your colleagues'? Your
school's?

These prompts come from Ceronne Berkley-Daly and Faith Dunne, Annenberg
Institute for School Reform, Providence, RI.


At 2:14 PM 8/30/99, Monty Neill wrote:
>In a message dated 8/28/99 5:18:51 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
>Csubstance@AOL.COM writes:
>
>>
>>  Review that Annie Stein (NYC) shared with me more than 25 years ago. It was
>>  an article about tracking kindergarten students through social cues by
>>  organizing the tables from "advanced" through "remedial" based on things
>> like
>>  ability to sit without squirming and shoes. I believe the author was named
>>  Crist.
>
>Was the author Ray Rist? I think it may even have been called Pygmalian in
>the Classroom, tho that might be another book. One of the scary elements of
>Rist's ethnographic work is that not only were the kids pretty much all
>black, but so were the teachers. They sorted by perceived class background.
>
>Monty Neill
>
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