Racial identity as a factor in preservice and inservice teachers' evaluations of students who speak Standard American and African American Vernacular English dialects

Abstract

This study examines teachers’ linguistic stereotypes of their students and the impact of those stereotypes on teachers’ expectations of student academic achievement. Specifically, the study focuses on the teachers’ evaluations of students who speak Standard American English (SAE) versus African American Vernacular English (AAVE). Matched guise technique was used to create the dialect samples, which were presented through a web-based data collection process. The study also incorporates teaching experience and racial identity of the teacher as independent variables. Results show that students who speak AAVE are evaluated more negatively with regard to superiority and classroom expectations than are students who speak SAE. Euro American teachers of lower levels of racial identity development harbor especially negative attitudes toward speakers of AAVE. Teaching experience had no effect on these linguistic stereotypes.