Classroom settings bring to light many differences between children—differences that children notice and attempt to explain. Here, we advance theory on the psychological processes underlying how children explain the differences they observe in the classroom. Integrating evidence from cognitive, social, cultural, developmental, and educational psychology, we propose that young children tend to explain differences among their peers by appealing to the inherent characteristics of those individuals and, conversely, tend to overlook extrinsic reasons for such differences—that is, reasons having to do with external circumstances and structural factors. We then outline how this inherence bias in children’s explanations affects their motivation and performance in school, exacerbating inequalities in achievement and making these inequalities seem legitimate. We conclude by suggesting several means of counteracting the inherence bias in children’s explanations and its effects on their educational outcomes. Throughout, we highlight new directions for research on the relation between children’s explanations, their motivation and achievement, and the inequalities observed in elementary school and beyond.

课堂设置揭示了儿童之间的许多差异——儿童注意到并试图解释的差异。在这里，我们提出了关于儿童如何解释他们在课堂上观察到的差异的心理过程的理论。综合来自认知、社会、文化、发展和教育心理学的证据，我们建议幼儿倾向于通过诉诸于同龄人的内在特征来解释同龄人之间的差异，相反，往往会忽视造成这种差异的外在原因——即也就是说，原因与外部环境和结构因素有关。然后我们概述了这种固有偏见儿童的解释影响他们在学校的动机和表现，加剧了成就的不平等并使这些不平等看起来是合理的。最后，我们提出了几种抵消儿童解释中的内在偏见及其对教育成果的影响的方法。在整个过程中，我们强调了研究儿童解释、他们的动机和成就以及小学及以后观察到的不平等之间关系的新方向。