Does an immigrant teacher help immigrant students cope with negative stereotypes? Preservice teachers' and school students' perceptions of teacher bias and motivational support, as well as stereotype threat effects on immigrant students' learning

Abstract

Can immigrant school students profit from an immigrant teacher sharing their minority background? We investigate preservice teachers' (Study 1; Mage = 26.29 years; 75.2% female) and school students' (Study 2; Mage = 14.88 years; 49.9% female) perceptions of a teacher as well as immigrant school students' learning gains (Study 2) by comparing four experimental video conditions in which a female teacher with a Turkish or German name instructs school students in a task while either saying that learning gains differed (stereotype activation) or did not differ (no stereotype activation) between immigrant and non-immigrant students. Study 1 shows that preservice teachers, regardless of their own cultural background, perceived the Turkish origin teacher as less biased, even when she voiced the stereotype, and as more motivationally supportive of school students in general than the German origin teacher. Study 2 shows that in contrast, among school students, the minority teacher was not perceived as less biased than the majority teacher. Rather, immigrant school students, in particular those with Turkish roots, were more concerned than students of the German majority that the teacher—irrespective of her background—was biased. Interestingly, these differences between students from different backgrounds disappeared when the teacher said that learning gains differed between immigrant and non-immigrant students. Immigrant school students of non-Turkish backgrounds, but not Turkish origin students suffered in their learning when instructed by the Turkish origin teacher who voiced the stereotype. We discuss implications for teacher recruitment.