Off-campus UNL users: To download campus access dissertations, please use the following link to log into our proxy server with your NU ID and password. When you are done browsing please remember to return to this page and log out.
Non-UNL users: Please talk to your librarian about requesting this dissertation through interlibrary loan.
The influence of student race on teacher trainee perceptions of student aggression
Abstract
Theory and previous research suggest that a stereotype exists in our culture that African-American males are aggressive, and that this stereotype may unconsciously influence judgments of behavior. The primary purpose of the present study was to determine whether teacher trainees' perceptions of the aggressiveness of students was influenced by the student's race. Three secondary questions investigated how student race influenced participants': (1) perceptions of the friendliness of the student; (2) predictions about the likelihood for discipline problems for that student; and (3) estimates of how well that student would get along with peers. In addition, in order to understand better the perceptual process involved in the teacher judgments of the students' behavior, two open ended questions were asked focusing on the factors influencing participants' perceptions and possible teacher responses to the student's behavior. The videotaped vignettes of a student engaged in ambiguously aggressive interactions with peers were shown to 140 teacher trainees from a local university. The initiator in all three vignettes was the same European-American male student, however, half of the participants viewed versions where the videotape had been colorized so that the initiator appeared to be African-American. Following viewing of each of the vignettes the participants rated the initiator on sixteen different characteristics. The two primary dependent variables were determined through a factor analysis of participants' ratings for each vignette creating "aggressiveness" and "friendliness" scales from clusters of individual characteristics. A multivariate analysis of variance indicated that the African-American appearing initiator was judged to be less aggressive than the European-American initiator. In addition, t-tests produced the same results in one of the vignettes by itself. No other results of statistical significance were found. One of two hypotheses most likely explain these findings: (1) observers may have consciously modified their judgments of the African-American appearing initiator in an attempt to be more fair and not stereotype; or (2) a higher threshold, based on greater expectations for aggression by African-American males, may have led observers to judge the African-American initiator's behavior as less aggressive.
Subject Area
Educational psychology|Social psychology|Teacher education|Minority & ethnic groups|Sociology
Recommended Citation
Hindmand, Reed Alan, "The influence of student race on teacher trainee perceptions of student aggression" (1998). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9903768.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9903768