The American Psychological Association (APA) published research showing that prospective teachers are more likely to see Black children as angry than white children
While previous research has documented this effect in adults, this is the first study to show how anger bias based on race may extend to teachers and Black elementary and middle-school children.
Dr Amy G. Halberstadt, a professor of psychology at North Carolina State University was the lead researcher. The study was published online in the APA journal Emotion.
Halberstadt said: “This anger bias can have huge consequences by increasing Black children’s experience of not being ‘seen’ or understood by their teachers and then feeling like school is not for them.
“It might also lead to Black children being disciplined unfairly and suspended more often from school, which can have long-term ramifications.”
Black children mistakenly thought to be angry
In the study, 178 prospective teachers from education programs at three Southeastern universities viewed short video clips of 72 children ages 9 to 13 years old. The children’s faces expressed one of six basic emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise or disgust. The clips were evenly divided among boys or girls and Black children or white children. The sample was not large enough to determine whether the race or ethnicity of the teachers made a difference in how they perceived the children.
The prospective teachers were somewhat accurate at detecting the children’s emotions, but they also made some mistakes that revealed patterns. Boys of both races were misperceived as angry more often than Black or white girls. Black boys and girls also were misperceived as angry at higher rates than white children, with Black boys eliciting the most anger bias.
Devastating impact of anger bias against Black children
Anger bias against Black children can have many negative consequences. While controlling for other factors, previous research has found that Black children are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled from school than white children. Black children’s negative experiences at school also could contribute to the disparate achievement gap between Black and white youth that has been documented across the United States.
Those in the study also completed questionnaires relating to their implicit and explicit racial bias, but their scores on those tests didn’t affect the findings relating to Black children. However, those who displayed greater racial bias were less likely to misperceive white children as angry.
What do the results mean for racial equality?
Halberstadt further commented: “Even when people are motivated to be anti-racist, we need to know the specific pathways by which racism travels, and that can include false assumptions that Black people are angry or threatening.
“Those common racist misperceptions can extend from school into adulthood and potentially have fatal consequences, such as when police officers kill unarmed Black people on the street or in their own homes.”
Previous research with adults in the United States has found that anger is perceived more quickly than happiness in Black faces, while the opposite effect was found for white faces. Anger also is perceived more quickly and for a longer time in young Black men’s faces than young white men’s faces.
Anger also is perceived more quickly and for a longer time in young Black men’s faces than young white men’s faces.
Participants in the study were predominantly female (89%) and white (70%), mirroring the gender and race of most public-school teachers across the country. The study didn’t include enough people of color from any single race or ethnicity (Hispanic 9%, Asian 8%, Black 6%, Biracial 5%, Native American 1%, and Middle Eastern 1%) to analyse separate findings based on the race or ethnicity of the participants.
Halberstadt said: “Over the last few weeks, many people are waking up to the pervasive extent of systemic racism in American culture, not just in police practices but in our health, banking and education systems.
“Learning more about how these problems become embedded in our thought processes is an important first step.”
