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research paper affect of school climate on student academic performance
the effect of prejudice on individual, society, education
factors that influence the climate of the school
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Achieving academic success is a challenge for many children; however, for many African American children, academic success is more than a challenge; it is an almost impossible feat. Anyone can look in the papers, or take a peek in the average classroom grade books and see the big disparity, or achievement gap that is evident between African American and Caucasian students’ grades, or levels of proficiency on academic measures. Although there are many reasons that have been offered to explain why this gap exists, many researchers are interested specifically in the role that teacher’s beliefs, attitudes, and teaching practices or styles play in enhancing or hindering academic performance among African American students.
Oates, (2003) examined the relationship between the ethnicity of the teacher and the ethnicity of the student to determine if dissimilarity in teachers and students races has an influence on teachers’ perceptions of students (Oates, 2003). He also looked at whether the relationship between teacher perceptions among students of the same race (i.e. African American teacher; African American student) would be consequential to performance. He utilized the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) of 1988, that focused on 24,559 eighth graders; however, after centering on the educational processes of students who had tenth(1990) and twelfth(1992) grade standardized test data and tenth grade teacher-perception data available, he had a sample size of 836 African American students; 670 with perception data from white teachers and 166 with perception data from African American teachers; and, 7094 white students with perception data from white teachers and 155 with perception data from African American teachers (O...
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...od further directions to go into. These and other focuses on academic achievement can help glean more information on, and a better understanding of how teachers’ perception, beliefs, attitudes, and teaching practices can have an impact (positive or negative) in African American students’ academic success.
References
Oates, G.L. (2003). Teacher-student racial congruence, teacher perceptions, and test performance. Social Science Quarterly, 84(3), 509-523.
Bakari, R. (2003). Preservice teacher's attitudes toward teaching african american students: contemporary research. Urban Education, 38(6), 640-654 Retrieved from http://uex.sagepub.com/content/38/6/640.refs.html doi: 10.1177/0042085903257317
Love, A, & Kruger, A.C. (2005). Teacher beliefs and student achievement in urban schools serving african american students. Journal of Educational Research, 99(2), 87-98.
Parenting alone is not to blame for poor school performance of African American children. The size of a school affects their student’s dropout rate. When school size increases the quality of education decreases. As stated by Velma Zahirovic-Herbert and Geoffrey
In conclusion, the Academic Achievement has been fueled by society's presets, minority students' lack of effort, and the failures of the schooling system in America. There has been some challenging setbacks, but the Gap can be fixed to create a common ground for all prospective members of America's society to excel on equally. By realizing that change can be achieved, there are little to no limits for minority students to create a better mindset towards education. Students, parents, and teachers have to be willing to work together, as well as tackle obstacles upheld by society, and the economic deficiencies that effect schools across America. This will, in turn, take America one step closer to closing the Academic Achievement Gap in America.
In Topeka, Kansas, the school for African-American children appeared to be equal to that of the white school. However, the school was overcr...
Hallinan, Maureen T.. "Sociological Perspectives on Black-White Inequalities in American Schooling." Handbook of the sociology of education. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2000. 50-70. Print.
The theme of the research is to discover why there is such a vast educational gap between minority and Caucasian students. Many American are unaware that such an educational gap actually exists among today’s students. This article informs us of alarming statics, such as of African American students representing a majority of the special education population, despite only making up roughly 40% of the student population. It also breaks down key events that contributed to the poor education that minority children are currently receiving. For example, in the past, it was illegal to educate African Americans and when it became legal to blacks were treated as second class students. They were segregated from their white counter parts and given hand-me-down textbooks. This article also discusses others factors that contributed to the poor education of minority students such as moral principles, socio-political, and economic stat. Despite the amount of time that has past, today’s schools are similar to the past. Minority children are still in second-rate learning environments while white students enjoy the comforts of first class school buildings and textbooks. In summary, the theme of this article was to bring attention to the educational gap among African-American, Latino, Asian, and other non-white students.
The achievement gap is defined as the disparity between the performance groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, ability and socio-economic status. The achievement gap can be observed through a variety of measures including standardized test scores, grade point averages, drop out rates, college enrollment and completion rates. The Black-White achievement gap is a critical issue in modern society’s education system. Although data surrounding the issue clearly indicates that the racial performance gap exists in areas of standardized tests, graduation rates, dropout rates, and enrollment in continuing education, the causative reasons for the gap are ambiguous—therefore presenting a significant challenge in regard to the most effective way to close the gap. The gap appears before children enter kindergarten and it persists into adulthood (Jencks 1998). Since 1970, the gap has decreased about 40 percent, but has steadily grown since. Theories suggest the Black-White achievement gap is created by a multitude of social, cultural, and economic factors as well as educational opportunities and/or learning experiences. Factors such as biased testing, discrimination by teachers, test anxiety among black students, disparities between blacks and whites in income or family structure, and genetic and cultural differences between blacks and whites have all been evaluated as explanations for the Black-White achievement gap (Farkas 2004). The research that follows will elaborate on these factors as they affect the decline in academic performance of black males—particularly the literacy achievement of black males.
As cliché as it sounds, it is true that many African American students come from very harsh and poverty stricken environments. They tend to go to under resourced schools as well that do not provide the proper knowledge for them to further their education. And even worse, these schools tend to be segregated since they are usually in the harsher parts of a neighborhood. Sadly, it’s the segregated schools are one of the main reasons why black students decide not to go on to pursue a higher education. According to "The Way Out of the Black Poverty Cycle", a black student that attends an integrated suburban school is six times more likely to graduate compared to a segregated under resourced school. An African Americans family structure and the opinions of family members affects if their decision to further their education as well. Many African American children grow up un...
Throughout the years the dropout rate of African Americans has increased and decreased. Many people look at black students as if they sit there and do not learn anything at all but we do try. Some may think that the only reason the black students drop out is because their grades, but that’s not true. Some dropout because of financial pressure, health problems, mental, emotional, and social issues, and may not have family support.
Peske, Heather G., and Kati Haycock. "Teaching Inequality: How Poor and Minority Students Are Shortchanged on Teacher Quality: A Report and Recommendations by the Education Trust." Education Trust. N.p., June 2006. Web. 12 Jan. 2014.
The author, Gloria Ladson-Billings, discusses in her book, "The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children," how African American students perform at lower academic levels in part due to teacher approaches and attitudes. She performed a study on eight teachers of different races and backgrounds and their approaches to teaching African American students. The purpose of the study was to identify what approaches or techniques have been most successful in helping African American students to achieve academic success. She also focuses on the idea of "culturally relevant teaching" and how it can positively impact students when teachers are aware and incorporate a student's culture and backgrounds into the classroom. Throughout the book, the
Kailin, Julie. (1998). Preparing Teachers For Schools and Communities: An Anti- Racist Perspective. High School Journal, 82, 1-9.
A significant problem of practice in education is teacher bias. Teacher bias has implications around race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and socioeconomic status. Teachers must be willing to examine their beliefs, acknowledge and overcome their biases. Teachers need to evaluate their practices in relation to their ideals as well as recognize and assess the position of power they hold in their classrooms in order to be true Social Justice Educators (Cooper, 2003).
Taylor, R., Casten, R., Flickinger, S., Roberts, D., & Fulmore, C. (1994). Explaining the school performance of African-American adolescents. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 4(1), 21-44. doi: 10.1111/1532-7795.ep11301469
It is very important for teacher educators to develop self-awareness of cultural biases and discriminatory practices as well as to exam the effects of their beliefs, their attitudes, and expectations for teacher
While both interviewees stated they did not feel their institutions were ignoring different races and groups and lesson plans were designed around promotion multiculturalism, schools that primarily white often fail to be as cultural diverse as schools with a healthy racial composition. Lesson plans are often ambivalent towards understanding the struggles and hardships of certain racial groups, such as the Native Americans during the time of European exploration. In addition, students at mostly white institutions often associated success with how hard an individual works rather than any hardships or racist or sexist acts thrown upon that person. Ironically, the little multiculturalism that is introduced in prominently white schools has been ill received by parents and teachers. Both parties, especially parents, argue that the children growing up today are “color-blind” and that no explicit efforts to inject multiculturalism should occur in the classroom outside of settings considered appropriate, such as history courses (Lewis, 2003: