Students’ Preconceptions of Professors: Benefits and Barriers According to Ethnicity and Gender

Abstract

The present study examined the influence of professor and student characteristics on students' preconceptions of college professors. Course syllabi for a politically charged social science course were constructed with versions varying by teaching style, professor gender, and professor ethnicity. A total of 633 (44% Latino; 34% African American; 22% Anglo) undergraduates rated the course and the instructor on professor warmth, professor capability, and political bias. Among several findings associated with professor ethnicity and teaching style, Latina professors were viewed as more warm when they had a lenient teaching style and less warm when they had a strict teaching style when compared with Anglo women professors with respective styles. Anglo men students perceived professors as more politically biased than did other students. Results are discussed in the context of aversive racism and a double standard of evaluation for Latino professors.

Passionate pedagogy and emotional labor: students’ responses to learning diversity from diverse instructors

“…Similar to past research (Anderson and Smith 2005;Laden and Hagedorn 2000), our findings suggest that minority and female instructors are evaluated by students as more biased than their white, male counterparts teaching a similar curriculum. Female instructors of color are particularly targeted for politicized commentary and reacting to the impact of "deep acting" in the differential demands of emotion work in the academy (Harlow 2003;Turner 2002).…”

Students’ stereotypes of professors: an exploration of the double violations of ethnicity and gender

“…Student characteristics (e.g., ethnicity and gender) and whether or not those characteristics predict their stereotypes about professors were not examined in the present study. Anderson and Smith (2005) found some, but not many, significant effects associated with student characteristics in their study. However, many studies on stereotyping find that members of target groups share the same stereotypes about their group as do dominant group members (see Anderson 2010or Valian 1999 for reviews).…”

Pedagogical Signals of Faculty Approachability: Factors Shaping Faculty–Student Interaction Outside the Classroom

“…Thus, students may enter college with unconscious expectations that female instructors will be more personable and engaging than male faculty members. The current evidence is mixed, however, with at least one study finding a relationship between instructor gender and student preconceptions (Moore and Trahan 1997) while another (Anderson and Smith 2005) found no such relationship. Regardless, we speculate that male professors who defy student expectations by employing hands-on teaching practices, or those that encourage student interaction with diverse peers and ideas, may be viewed by students as uniquely or especially interested in students and, therefore, more likely to experience out-of-class contact with students.…”