Work

Examining How White Teachers’ Interracial Contact Experiences Shape Their Self-Efficacy and School Choices

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Racial inequalities in education may be exacerbated by teachers’ lack of confidence about working with students from racial and ethnic backgrounds different to their own. Although intergroup contact experiences typically enhance people’s self-efficacy about navigating cross-group interactions, very little work has explored such trends among teachers. Across two cross-sectional studies and one preregistered repeated measures experiment (N = 1,608), we reveal that (a) White teachers’ interracial contact experiences predicted a stronger sense of self-efficacy about cross-race engagement; (b) White teachers generally showed a preference for working in a majority-White school compared to a majority-Black school, but this bias was attenuated by teachers’ interracial contact experiences; and (c) the link between cross-race friendships and desire to work in the majority-Black school was mediated by a greater sense of self-efficacy.

Source: Educational Researcher

DOI: 10.3102/0013189x251322791

Authors: Lewis Doyle, Linda R. Tropp, Matthew J. Easterbrook

Institutions: University of Sussex, Université de Poitiers, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Language: English

Topic: Social and Intergroup Psychology

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Quality education, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $2,500