Think back to high school. Did a teacher ever tell you that you weren’t strong enough academically to attend a 4-year college? Did your teachers care if you did well? Did they expect you to excel?
Psychology first defined the self-fulfilling prophecy as a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to come true. This concept has since been used in sociology and education to explain how the achievement gap is affected by expectations (e.g., EDWEEK article). This “prophecy” is not some divine intervention or a certain fact. It may be a teacher telling you that you will fail, or it may indirect, preconceived expectations of students within their classrooms.
A label itself, especially a stigmatizing one, can be hurtful to one’s achievement; but the label also leads to this self-fulfilling prophecy. If a teacher expects students to do poorly, they most likely will, because the teacher will stop putting in effort to their success. At the same time, students may lose self-efficacy and thus will no longer push themselves to achieve outside the low expectations.
Jussim, Eccles, and Madon (1996), a team of social psychologists, examined conditions in education in which self-fulfilling prophecies would be more powerful. They found that overall teacher perceptions of student performance at the beginning of the year correlated with the students’ final grades. This idea alone makes logical sense if teachers’ perceptions and expectations are purely rooted in their students’ previous performance. However, the influence of these expectations within marginalized groups, such as students of color and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, is significant.
Teacher’s expectations influenced the achievement of students from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds more than those from high SES backgrounds. Low SES students performed better on standardized test scores when teachers rated them with high effort and performance rather than with low expectations, whereas high SES students did not differ much in performance depending on the teacher’s perceptive. This finding illustrates that the self-fulfilling prophecy is affecting the low SES students more (see Figure 1).
This same pattern emerged for students of color compared to white students. Teachers’ perceptions of performance affect black students’ standardized test scores at a larger rate than for white students (see Figure 2).
Given this one study, especially in the context of other research completed on self-fulfilling prophecy in education (see, here or here), how a teacher perceives students is important. Setting low standards based on biases and stereotypes of groups will only continue to hinder these students who are already at disadvantages given their backgrounds and resources.
Thus, the schools reinforce the achievement gap with their expectations. Looking at this self-fulfilling prophecy in regard to social class in “ghetto” education, Ray Rist explains that “…there is a greater tragedy than being labeled as a slow learner, and that is being treated as one” (pg. 448)
As seen in Jussim’s research, the students struggling in the achievement gap, those of low socioeconomic status and those students of color, are affected the most by the self-fulfilling prophecy. It is then important to find a way to counter these prophecies from making the achievement gap greater. Teachers must find a way to push through their stereotypes and innate biases to view all students as able to succeed.
Post by Maggie Hall.