Teacher Prophecies and the Inheritance of Inequality

Abstract

Self-fulfilling prophecies within classrooms are believed to be important social phenomena for the inheritance of social inequalities. Such beliefs form the basis for a causal model designed to show how teacher prophecies may transmit the effects of students' social origins to their academic achievements. The model is elaborated to include cognitive and normative dimensions of teacher expectations in a mutual influence relationship, and to include both standardized and teacher evaluations of achievement. The results of estimating this model indicate that teachers do not engage in social class discrimination. Teachers appear to base their expectations on the achievement of students, not on students' ascribed characteristics. Moreover, the data suggest that teacher expectations affect not so much what is learned in school as the certification of this learning by the school.