Talking about Implicit Teacher Bias with CBS-LA
Dr. Yasemin Copur-Gencturk had the opportunity to share the results of a recent study on implicit teacher biases in mathematics education with CBS News Los Angeles.
You can find the article from Educational Researcher here and watch the video from CBS-LA here.
Teacher bias devalues math skills of girls and students of color, USC research finds
by Ross Brenneman (from USC News, you can find the full article here)
New USC research into how teachers evaluate the mathematical ability of students suggests that white teachers and teachers of color alike have biases that favor white and male students.
The researchers asked two questions: First, when reviewing the work of fictitious students, do teachers’ ratings of students’ abilities differ depending on the gender or race/ethnicity of students’ names? And second, do teachers’ own race, gender and educational backgrounds predict their implicit biases?
The study, published in the December 2019 edition of Educational Researcher, found that teachers evaluated students’ performance equally along racial and gender lines but assumed that girls — and especially girls of color — had lower math abilities than boys and white boys. According to their findings, the lowest-rated group was always females of color.
“Our study suggests that even teachers affected by harmful stereotypes are not free of bias,” said lead author Yasemin Copur-Gencturk, assistant professor of education at the USC Rossier School of Education. “The findings suggest that implicit stereotypical messages people may have received throughout their lives could lead them to internalize these messages.”
[continue with the full article by following this link]
The USC Rossier Magazine ran a feature article about Yasemin Copur-Gencturk’s love of math and how her personal history led her to pursue research that improves mathematics education.
“If kids saw math the way that I see it, they would love it,” she says. “It’s so beautiful because it’s so logical. As long as you notice the pattern, you can arrive at important conclusions all on your own.”
Yasemin Copur-Gencturk featured on the USC Rossier Homepage.
“Identifying how teachers learn will allow us to create more effective learning opportunities for our teachers,” Copur-Gencturk says. “In turn, we can address the inequity in our educational system more effectively.”
The New York Times quoted Yasemin Copur-Gencturk-Gencturk in its article, Does Teacher Diversity Matter in Student Learning?
“A new study, not yet published, found that math teachers favored boys over girls, and white students over black or Hispanic students — and that female teachers were biased in favor of boys and that nonwhite teachers were the most biased in favor of white students.
‘These results indicate that enduring cultural biases may have long residual effects on stigmatized groups,’ said Yasemin Copur-Gencturk, one of the authors and an assistant professor of education at the University of Southern California.”
Yasemin Copur-Gencturk mentioned in a press release on the Joan Herman and Richard Rasiej Mathematics Initiative.
“Improving teachers’ understanding of mathematics and the quality of their mathematics instruction in elementary school may translate into greater understanding and proficiency on the part of students.”