Background

Black adolescents commonly experience unfair treatment from teachers and other school staff that can undermine Black adolescents’ engagement in school and their perceptions of adults as trustworthy.

Objective

This study aimed to address the overarching research question: “How do unfair experiences with school staff manifest and impact Black adolescents?”.

Method

This study used a mixed methods approach guided by two sub-questions. Our qualitative strand of inquiry used interview data from 25 Black adolescents, their parents, and another familial adult (75 total interviews) to explore the sub-question: “How do unfair experiences with school staff unfold?” Our quantitative strand analyzed survey data from 216 Black adolescents to address the sub-question: “Is a specific type of unfair experience, teacher racial discrimination, associated with Black adolescents having fewer natural mentors (supportive non-parental adults from adolescents’ everyday lives) via lower trust toward adults?”.

Results

Analyses of interview data suggested experiencing specific types of unfair treatment— (a) being singled out, (b) observing favoritism, (c) feeling belittled, and (d) unwarranted or overly harsh punishment—was followed by students disengaging from class, schoolwork, or teachers. Analyses of survey data indicated unfair treatment in the form of teacher racial discrimination was negatively associated with the quantity of natural mentors via lower perceptions of adults as trustworthy.

Conclusions

Collectively, our findings suggest unfair treatment by school staff may set in motion a domino effect that negatively influences Black students’ engagement with school and undermines their connection with supportive adults.

中文翻译：

---

一项探索黑人青少年被学校教职员工不公平对待的性质的混合方法研究：对青少年对成人信任的影响

背景

黑人青少年通常会受到教师和其他学校工作人员的不公平待遇，这可能会破坏黑人青少年在学校的参与度以及他们对成年人值得信赖的看法。

客观的

这项研究旨在解决首要研究问题：“与学校教职员工的不公平经历如何表现并影响黑人青少年？”。

方法

本研究使用由两个子问题引导的混合方法。我们的定性调查使用了来自 25 名黑人青少年、他们的父母和另一位家庭成年人的访谈数据（总共 75 次访谈）来探讨子问题：“与学校教职员工的不公平经历是如何展开的？” 我们的定量分析分析了 216 名黑人青少年的调查数据，以解决以下子问题：“一种特定类型的不公平经历，教师种族歧视，是否与黑人青少年的自然导师较少（青少年日常生活中的支持性非父母成年人）有关？通过降低对成年人的信任？”。

结果

对访谈数据的分析表明，经历了特定类型的不公平待遇——(a) 被挑出来，(b) 观察到偏袒，(c) 感到被贬低，以及 (d) 无根据或过于严厉的惩罚——随后是学生脱离课堂、学业，或老师。对调查数据的分析表明，教师种族歧视形式的不公平待遇与自然导师的数量呈负相关，因为成年人对可信度的看法较低。

结论

总的来说，我们的研究结果表明，学校工作人员的不公平待遇可能会引发多米诺骨牌效应，对黑人学生对学校的参与产生负面影响，并破坏他们与支持他们的成年人的联系。