This study examined the existence of implicit racial bias among public school teachers within the gifted referral process. Public school teachers from urban, suburban, and rural school districts surrounding a large northeastern city were be provided vignettes of gifted students demonstrating “typical” and “hidden” giftedness. The names and races of students within the vignettes were randomized to represent either a White male student or a Black male student. Univariate and multivariate analyses were utilized to determine the existence of significant differences in perceptions of giftedness and need for referral among teachers. In contrast to the hypotheses of the study, vignettes describing Black “typically” gifted students were rated as significantly higher than White “typically” gifted students. Black students also did not experience a significant decrease in ratings of giftedness and need for referral when described as “hidden” gifted. Lastly, results demonstrated a significant interaction where White students experienced a significant increase in both ratings of giftedness and need for referral when described as showing signs of “hidden” giftedness compared to their White “typically” gifted counterparts. Further discussion of these results along with imitations and considerations, most importantly the presence of social desirability bias, can be found at the end of this work. / School Psychology

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Thesis advisor: Lauri Johnson / This qualitative case study explored how educators of color experienced recruitment and hiring practices in the Cityside Public School District (pseudonym). It was part of a larger group case study that sought to capture the perceptions of educators of color related to racial disproportionality and its impact on the educator pipeline and schools. Two research questions guided this individual study: (1) How do Cityside educators of color experience Cityside’s recruitment and/or hiring processes? (2) What practices and policies might Cityside school and district level leaders utilize to increase the number of educators of color recruited and hired? Data for this study were collected from semi-structured interviews with nine Cityside faculty of color and with six Cityside administrators (of different races), as well as from a document review. Analysis of these data through the lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT) revealed study participants’ perception that implicit racial bias had the potential to negatively impact Cityside's hiring of educators of color. Additionally, leveraging social networks as an essential recruitment strategy to increase the presence of educators of color, and the benefits of hiring committees with a racially diverse membership, emerged as key findings. Finally, this study illuminated counter narratives that powerfully captured instances of microaggressions and perceived racism experienced by Cityside educators of color. Recommendations include requiring professional development with an anti-bias focus for all hiring committee participants, increasing the utilization of social networks to enhance recruitment efforts, ensuring a racially diverse composition of hiring committees, and actively seeking the counter narratives of Cityside educators of color. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

The overarching goal of this study was to examine whether perceptions of others’ free will would differ depending on perceiver race as well as target race. The current study proposed that such a racial bias may be one mechanism by which racial disparities in medical treatment recommendations arise. By bridging findings from four different lines of research (i.e., the literatures on racial health and medical treatment disparities, racial bias, free will beliefs, and social identity), it was hypothesized that: (1) participants would perceive greater amounts of free will for a hypothetical racial ingroup patient than an outgroup patient; (2) such effect would be moderated by participant racial identity and/or racial bias, such that greater racial identity and/or ingroup racial bias would result in greater differences in racial ingroup vs. racial outgroup members’ free will; and (3) greater perception of the patient free will would indirectly affect treatment recommendation for the patient through increased perceived patient self-control. In order to test these hypotheses, the study used a 2 (Participant race: Black vs. White) x 2 (Target race: Black vs. White) x Continuous (Racial Identity/Racial Attitudes) between-subjects design, in which target race was manipulated experimentally. The results indicated that Black participants’ perceptions of patient free will was moderated by both racial identity and racial bias. Specifically, those who weakly identified with their racial group perceived a greater amount of free will in the White target patient than the Black target patient. Also, Black participants who displayed pro-White racial bias, a greater amount of free in the White target patient than the Black target patient. These moderating effects of racial identity/racial bias were not found for the White participants. Also, patient free will had an indirect effect on treatment recommendation by way of perceived patient self-control, such that perceived free positively predicted the more rigorous of two treatments. Limitations of the current research include the undergraduate college student sample, the use of a general measure of racial identity, and the use of the old IAT algorithm. Future work should examine empirically whether findings from the present study can be generalized to provider samples.

This study examined whether the disproportionality of African American children referred to special education is influenced by the level of implicit racial bias among teachers, using the aversive racism theory. Data were collected from teachers of kindergarten through sixth grade in the Iowa City Community School District through email recruitment. Using a factorial survey design, teachers evaluated five vignettes, each with five questions mirroring the referral process to special education, an implicit and explicit racial bias measure, and demographics. Of the 307 teachers emailed, only 21 completed the full survey. The small sample size hindered the analysis due to violations of two of the major assumptions of linear regression: normality and constant variance. Due to these violations, only limited interpretations can be concluded from the linear models. A logistic regression was also completed on the referral for special education dependent variable and yielded the following significant results: The teachers who scored high on the explicit racism measure were more likely to refer a child to a special education assessment and other results revealed associations between certain characteristics and behaviors of the children and their likelihood of referral. The majority of teachers in the sample (67%) scored high in implicit racial bias but none of the models indicates a relationship between the child's race and referral to special education. The study suggests there is some connection between implicit racial bias and referrals to special education but not due to race. However, the complexity of relationships among these and other factors in both interpersonal relationships and classroom dynamics makes it necessary to further investigate this question and potentially remedy the problem of disproportionality in special education.

Black youth are diagnosed with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) at a higher rate than their White peers. The process of diagnosing young students with ADHD relies heavily on teacher recommendations that are frequently based on perceptions of behavior, to which the assessment of may be influenced by racial bias. A child’s ethnicity has been shown to have an impact on teacher descriptions of ADHD-related behavior (Epstein, Willoughby, Valencia, Tonev, Abikoff, Arnold, Hinshaw, 2005) such that in this study African American students were perceived by their teachers as more likely to have ADHD than their Caucasian peers. Research has also shown that the typical fifth-grade classroom is a low verve setting that is restrictive to communal learning (Johnson, 1982), while high verve settings have been shown to improve the academic functioning for many Black students (Bailey & Boykin, 2001; Carter, Hawkins, & Natesan, 2008; Young, 2017). By measuring the difference in teachers’ likelihood to recommend a described student for ADHD in both a traditional and high-verve classrooms, this study aims to investigate the role of verve in how teachers perceive Black students in relation to ADHD characteristics. The primary aim is to examine how increased task variability and a high verve classroom can shift teacher ratings of Black students’ abilities and lessen the degree of racialized difference of behavior-dependent diagnoses of ADHD. It is predicted that in the high verve setting these recommendations for Black students will drop significantly so that they will be equal to that of White students, reflecting the accurate prevalence of this learning disability.

Following the 9/11 terror attacks, many Americans experienced some form of habit or mood-altering stress though, most had received their impressions of the violence via distributed media reporting rather than firsthand exposure. Researchers have found that the propagating effects of media broadcasting can exasperate the effects of terror. However, little is known of how reports of terror violence affect group dynamics in geographically distant nations. The purpose of this study, following terror management theory, was to understand if terrorist violence influences cognitive and implicit racial evaluations in a culturally similar, but geographically distant, population. The study's design was a quantitative natural experiment. Time of completing the assessment, either before or after the 2015 Paris Bataclan terror attack, comprised the 2-level independent variable; the dependent variables were the Race Implicit Association Test (IAT) and a cognitive evaluation of racial anxiety. Age and religiosity served as covariates. The target population included White citizen residents of the United States over the age of 18; 263 participants were derived from archival data. Comparisons of raw IAT scores showed an 8% increase in negative implicit racial evaluations following the attack; however, the MANCOVA failed to achieve multivariate significance (p > .05). Despite the lack of statistical significance, important details on implicit racial attitudes were uncovered. Results of this study have the potential to foster positive social change by informing individuals on how their implicit associations might be affected following exposure to reports of terrorist violence. Additionally, these findings may guide national security and intelligence professional's development of post-attack response measures and task forces.

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This thesis was planned as an -interdisciplinary work, a possible exemplar of 'a peace study' (see Appendix 5). It offers an analysis of the situation of the Asian children of immigrant families, socially and racially disadvantaged in Britain, in the Bradford school system from the mid-1970's to 1980*, and their relative success in terms of external examination assessment in comparison with their peers. This is seen against the backcloth of pioneering Local Authority policies to support their education and observations of practice in schools. The findings are generalised as models of what is perceived by the policy-makers and practitioners to be progress towards racial justice and peace. It is argued that the British school system has shown limited facility to offer equal opportunity of success to pupils in socially disadvantaged groups and that this is borne out in an analysis of the situation of the Asian pupils in the County Upper schools in Bradford (CB), less likely to be allocated to external examination-orientated groups or to gain success in these than their peers. There are indications that their potential may not be being realised. It is argued that while language support for the bilingual child is important, account should also be taken of a more general cultural dominance in the school system and stereotyped low expectations from teachers which may feed racial bias in institutions. The data show that the LEA policies, though benevolent in intention, demonstrate institutional racism in effect. With four case studies from observations in Bradford schools, models are developed for practice that has potential for power-sharing and greater equity of opportunity -for pupils, involving respect for cultural diversity and antiracist education strategies supporting and supported by community participation in schools. It is argued that white educationists need to listen to black clients, pupils and their parents, involving them in dialogue to ascertain their real needs, to implement appropriate policy. As there was a considerable lapse of time between the field work research and writing up of this thesis, and its final presentation, an addendum (with bibliography) reviews some of the research and literature in the fleld since 1980. This situates the field work historically. The issues raised and discussed in the context of the 1970's are still far from being solved. The additional work stregthens, rather than changes my original conclusion that society is locked into a cycle of inequality. A counter-hegemony must emerge from 'grass-roots', community initiatives with a values-base linked not to self-seeking or confrontational power group politics but to a notion of the common good.

Across the country, African American defendants are being discriminated against in the criminal courts and by juries, particularly in capital cases.[1] This assertion is supported by two lines of research. First, an analysis of Supreme Court decisions focusing on the racial impact on voir dire. Second, social-legal studies on juror decision making have demonstrated legal and socio-legal histories providing evidence that demonstrate there is a racial bias in our system. Based on these findings, this paper sets forth several legal and policy recommendations to improve the fair adjudication of African American defendants charged with capital crimes. [1] Jack Glaser, Karin D. Martin, Kimberly B. Kahn, Possibility of Death Sentence Has Divergent Effect on Verdicts for Black and White Defendants (2015).