Teachers are singularly important for children’s development and learning. When school is in session, children often spend more waking hours with their teachers than with their parents. Given the sheer amount of time teachers spend with students and the impact they have on students’ outcomes, it is surprising that research on educational inequality has, until recently, primarily focused on the role of students, parents, and broad structural forces like income inequality rather than teacher psychology.

We thus set out to examine what is known about how disparities in students’ educational achievement and attainment might be influenced by their teachers’ thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Our review of the literature revealed several key insights:

We also explored how these thoughts and feelings can heighten inequality among students. We identified three mechanisms for these adverse effects, each of which points to a different set of solutions for reducing inequality:

  • Disparate assessment is the most direct way teacher psychology can create gaps in student outcomes. Teachers around the world evaluate marginalized group members more negatively than they do majority group members, from giving them worse grades to lower academic track placement recommendations. These evaluation gaps can be sizeable—up to 10 percentage points—and they tend to be most pronounced when evaluation criteria are vague. One way this type of effect of teachers’ psychology on students’ outcomes can be mitigated is to introduce blind grading procedures so that teachers do not know the identity of the students whose work they are grading.
  • Disparate interaction is the second way teacher psychology contributes to inequality in student outcomes. It includes differentially calling on, critiquing, responding to, instructing, or disciplining students from marginalized and majority groups. These different interactions amount to teachers teaching some groups of students more effectively than others and can result in learning, engagement, and performance gaps. Basic psychological research suggests that giving teachers clear, specific professional standards (as through coaching programs) for effective ways to treat all students and holding them accountable to those standards can be effective at equalizing how students are treated.
  • Disparate impact is the third way teachers influence disparities in student outcomes. This occurs when identical interactions lead to different consequences for marginalized and majority groups due to these groups’ different social circumstances (such as prior experiences with discrimination, awareness of broader societal stereotypes or inequality, or access to resources). For example, creating a competitive classroom culture, assuming access to resources, stressing individualistic achievement, and even cuing stereotypes through classroom decor can all have a distinctly negative impact on marginalized groups despite their equal application to all students. Effective teacher-focused interventions here might discourage teachers from using practices with this type of differential impact, instead using more group work, giving “wise” feedback, or framing assessments as learning opportunities. Alternatively, student-focused interventions may seek to protect marginalized students from the threats such practices pose by affirming their values, their belonging, or their identity.

Teachers Are Part Of A Complex Picture

Ultimately, the factors that perpetuate social inequalities are complex and systemic, but teachers’ attitudes and actions may be particularly important for disparities in students’ outcomes. Given a lack of evidence that diversity trainings and other interventions can effectively change beliefs or promote equity, investing in changing the psychology of individual teachers may not be the most effective route forward. Instead, we propose focusing on policies and practices that break the link between teachers’ psychology and students’ outcomes. Our purpose is not to blame teachers — teachers are just like everyone else in their levels of bias—but to identify the ways in which working with teachers can be a promising path to reducing social inequalities in education.

In our experience as educators, we’ve seen firsthand how inequalities can manifest in the classroom, even despite the best intentions. More collaboration between educators and researchers is needed to explore how to break the links between teacher psychology and student outcomes. In this way, we can empower educators to create the most equitable learning environments possible.  


For Further Reading

Turetsky, K. M., Sinclair, S., Starck, J. G., & Shelton, J. N. (2021). Beyond students: How teacher psychology shapes educational inequality. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(8), 697-709. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.04.006


Jordan G. Starck is an IDEAL Provostial Fellow in Psychology at Stanford University. His research investigates organizational diversity commitments, racial bias, and racial inequality, often in the context of education.

Kate M. Turetsky is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Barnard College of Columbia University. Her research examines the role of the social environment in inequality, intergroup relations, and stress, with a focus on developing interventions to promote equity and well-being.

Stacey Sinclair is a Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Her research evaluates how interpersonal interactions translate culturally held prejudices into individual thoughts and actions.

Nicole Shelton is the Stuart Professor of Psychology at Princeton University. Her research examines racial bias and the dynamics of interracial interactions.