Teacher Attitudes towards Ethnic Minority Students: Effects of Schools´ Cultural Diversity

in British Journal of Educational Psychology (2019), 89

Background: Research exploring mechanisms driving inequalities in school systems, has found that biased teacher judgments contribute to observed disadvantages for ethnic minority students. Teacher ... [more ▼]

Background: Research exploring mechanisms driving inequalities in school systems, has found that biased teacher judgments contribute to observed disadvantages for ethnic minority students. Teacher judgments may be driven by explicit and implicit attitudes. Aims: The current research explored the effect of cultural diversity at schools (actual or imagined) on teachers’ attitudes toward ethnic minority students. Samples: One hundred and-five preservice teachers (90 female) with a mean age 26.20 of years (teaching experience: 57.55 weeks) participated in Study 1. Two hundred and thirty-one teachers (159 female) with a mean age of 41.00 years (teaching experience: 12.92 years) participated Study 2. Method: Cultural diversity was operationalized via a fictive description of a school (Study 1) or via the actual proportion of ethnic minority students at the school (Study 2). An Implicit Association Test assessed implicit attitudes toward ethnic minority students. Explicit attitudes were assessed via questionnaire. Results: Preservice teachers imagining a more culturally diverse school held more negative implicit attitudes toward ethnic minority students than those imagining a less diverse school. In contrast, in-service teachers actually working in more diverse schools held less negative implicit attitudes toward minority students. Preservice teachers associated teaching in culturally diverse schools with increased effort, whereas in-service teachers actually working in culturally diverse schools reported more enthusiasm toward teaching ethnic minority students. Conclusions: This research shows the challenge and the negative stereotypes preservice teachers associate with culturally diverse schools, while inservice teachers’ negative associations may be buffered by the actual experience of working with ethnic minority students. [less ▲]

The role of explicit and implicit attitudes toward minorities in judgment and behavior

Scientific Conference (2013, August)

Implicit attitudes toward smoking: How the smell of cigarettes influences college-age smokers and non-smokers

in Journal of Health Psychology (2013)

The habit of smoking may have automatic behavioral components guided by implicit attitudes. Smokers’ attitudes toward smoking should thus be less negative than nonsmokers’, so that a salient smoking cue ... [more ▼]

The habit of smoking may have automatic behavioral components guided by implicit attitudes. Smokers’ attitudes toward smoking should thus be less negative than nonsmokers’, so that a salient smoking cue (smell) is able to activate positive aspects of these attitudes. An affective priming task was used to explore this hypothesis. Unexpectedly, smokers and nonsmokers showed equally negative implicit attitudes, irrespective of smell. Smokers exposed to the cigarette smell did, however, display generally slower responses than nonsmokers, suggesting attentional bias. This could have implications for smoking policies in contexts where attentional factors affect performance. [less ▲]

Student teachers’ implicit attitudes toward students with and without immigration background: A pilot study

in Studies in Educational Evaluation (2013), 39

Beyond fear appeals: Contradicting positive smoking outcome expectancies to influence smokers' implicit attitudes, perception, and behavior.

in Addictive Behaviors (2012), 37

Smokers often have (implicit or explicit) positive smoking outcome expectancies that motivate them to smoke. For instance, they may feel that smoking is relaxing, that it improves concentration, or that ... [more ▼]

Smokers often have (implicit or explicit) positive smoking outcome expectancies that motivate them to smoke. For instance, they may feel that smoking is relaxing, that it improves concentration, or that it is seen as cool and attractive by peers. These expectations are, for the most part, illusory. In order to counteract these expectations, we designed cigarette package warning labels that contradicted common positive outcome expectancies. We investigated the effectiveness of our new warning labels in two experiments. We first measured smokers' implicit attitudes toward smoking using an affective priming method and found that our new warning labels changed positive attitudes into ambivalent attitudes. We then tested whether our warning labels changed smokers' self-reported positive outcome expectancies and smoking behavior. Smokers presented with the new warning labels immediately associated positive outcome expectancies less strongly with smoking and reported smoking fewer cigarettes in the 24 hours following the experiment. Explicitly taking the reasons for unhealthy behavior into account when trying to change people's habits could offer a valuable contribution to effective health campaigns. [less ▲]