Teacher Expectations as a Political Issue in Rural Alaska Schools!
To measure teacher expectations for academic achievement in rural Alaska schools, we surveyed 304 randomly selected teachers. Teachers in predominantly Native schools held significantly different views about students' potential educational attainment and achievement than teachers in predominant...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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1987
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1088.9597 http://jrre.vmhost.psu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/4-1_8.pdf |
| Summary: | To measure teacher expectations for academic achievement in rural Alaska schools, we surveyed 304 randomly selected teachers. Teachers in predominantly Native schools held significantly different views about students' potential educational attainment and achievement than teachers in predominantly Caucasian schools. Fewer teachers in Native communities thought students would attend or graduate from college or could achieve at or above national norms. The debate these findings stimulated indicates the way teacher expectations research has been politicized in rural Alaska. Many rural educators see these beliefs as nothing more than a realistic assessment of present educational conditions and emphasize that these beliefs should not count as "low expectations." Many Native leaders, in contrast, see these attitudes as evidence of what they have always suspectedthe prejudiced attitudes that, in their view, create school failure among Native children. This article discusses the educational problems created by politicized debate on teacher expectations. The research literature on effective schooling consistently identifies a positive academic climate and high teacher expectations as variables strongly linked to high achievement test scores (1; 4; 7]. Most research on teacher expectations and school climate, however, has been done in inner-city urban schools with Black, Hispanic, and Caucasian populations. We have been able to locate only two studies that empirically examined teacher expectations in rural schools with Indian and Eskimo populations. Rampaul [10] found a significant association between teacher expectations and academic achievement among 41 third and fourth grade Native students in one northern Manitoba school. Larson [6] found that 52 student teachers in predominantly Indian or mixed ethnicity schools believed that Indian students are more likely to be seen as poor performers and that teachers treat poor performers less favorably. Both these studies, however, used small samples and offer little ... |
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