Overcoming Status Deficiencies in the Classroom
Abstract
Expectations states theory posits that diffuse status characteristics such as race, class, and gender, can lead to barriers to full inclusion into task-oriented small groups. This paper examines the applicability of diffuse status characteristics as barriers to positive evaluations by impartial appraisers, in this case mathematics teachers of tenth-grade students. The findings indicate that mathematics teachers’ evaluation of their students’ abilities, as measured in their prediction for academic degree attainment, is not bound to the use of diffuse status characteristics, but is more nuanced as when empirical observations of student ability and students’ self-efficacy and motivation are taken into account.