What Doesn't Meet the Eye

A Preview of Key Patterns

Racial and ethnic differences addressed in this paper fall primarily into four categories. First, there are self-reported achievement and skill disparities. Black, Hispanic, and mixed-race students indicate lower grade-point averages than whites and Asians (which is consistent with official records). Blacks and Hispanics also report less understanding of their teachers' lessons and less comprehension of the material that they read for school. I take the view in this paper that student problems with understanding lessons and comprehending readings reflect knowledge and skill deficiencies that responsive instructional strategies can help to ameliorate.

Second, there are differences in socioeconomic status (SES) and home learning resources. White and Asian students in MSAN communities arrive at school with greater socioeconomic-background advantages, on average, compared to blacks and Hispanics. These advantages include home learning resources, such as books and computers in the home. Several measures of SES are important predictors of achievement (though the estimates indicate that particular SES advantages boost achievement less among blacks and Hispanics than among whites and Asians).

Third, students were asked, "When you work really hard in school, which of the following reasons are most important for you?" In response, nonwhite students—and especially blacks—identified teacher encouragement more frequently than did whites. Further, nonwhites indicated teacher encouragement substantially more often than they emphasized teachers' demands. Conversely, white students cited teachers' demands more often than nonwhites and about equally as often as they (whites) cited teacher encouragement. The emphasis among nonwhites on teacher encouragement, as distinct from teacher demands, suggests the special importance of teacher-student relationships as a source of achievement motivation for blacks and Hispanics in particular.

Fourth, there are racial and ethnic differences in observable behaviors and homework completion rates. The differences make whites and Asians appear to be more academically engaged and may give teachers the impression that whites and Asians are more interested in their studies and work harder, on average, than black or Hispanic classmates.

There is much that does not meet the teacher's eye, however, including a number of intergroup similarities. Measures of effort and interest are the prime examples. As previously stated, there are differences in reported rates of homework completion. Yet reported times spent studying and doing homework differ very little among blacks, whites, and Hispanics in the same school and grade who take the same level classes.⁹ Asians are the only group that stands out with regard to effort, as measured by time on homework. Further, no group—not even Asians—expressed a distinctively high level of interest in schoolwork.

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