Examining the Relationship Between Beliefs About Mind-Set,Beliefs About Knowledge,and Cultural Proficiency Development for K-12 Public School Teachers

Abstract

As the 4-year high school graduation rate of African American and Latino/a students in U.S. public schools continues to lag behind their White peers, cultural proficiency development has become an increasingly significant focus of school districts. While substantial resources have been committed in school districts across the country to improve professional development and hiring practices, measurable gains have ranged from inconsistent to negligible. Given the improved understanding of the importance of cultural proficiency development for K-12 public school teachers, developing more effective ways to predict and support cultural proficiency development is a necessary step to take in efforts to improve outcomes for all students. In this study, we used a hierarchical regression analysis to determine the extent to which mind-set and beliefs about knowledge predicted cultural proficiency. Participants were 853 K-12 public school educators. In addition to demographic variables, five constructs were identified via factor analysis—mind-set of self, mind-set of others, simple knowledge, certain knowledge, and source of knowledge. Results indicated all five constructs, including the demographic variables of gender and age, were statistically significant predictors of cultural proficiency. Implications for professional development and human resource practices are discussed as well as topics for future research.

Keywords

multicultural education teachers educational leaders

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Alpay

Ireson

(2006). Self-theories of intelligence of engineering students. European Journal of Engineering Education, 31, 169-180.

Banks

J. A.

(2007). Educating citizens in a multicultural society (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Banks

J. A.

McGee Banks

C. A.

(2015). Multicultural education: Issues and perspectives (9th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.

Beatty

(2015, January 13). Dropouts are the real problem. Retrieved from http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/01/dropouts_are_the_real_problem.html

Belfield

Levin

H. M.

(2013). The cumulative costs of the opportunity gap. In Carter

P. L.

Welner

K. G.

(Eds.), Closing the opportunity gap: What America must do to give everychild an even chance (pp. 195-206). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Blackwell

L. S.

Trzesniewski

K. H.

Dweck

C. S.

(2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development, 78, 246-263.

Bonilla-Silva

(2016). Color-blind racism. In Rothenberg

P. S.

(Ed.), Race, class, and gender in the United States: An integrated study (10th ed., pp. 113-119). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.

Bottiani

J. H.

Bradshaw

C. P.

Mendelson

(2016). Inequality in black and white high school students’ perceptions of school support: An examination of race in context. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 45, 1176-1191.

Breslow

J. M.

(2012). By the numbers: Dropping out of high school. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/by-the-numbers-dropping-out-of-high-school/

10.

Brown

K. M.

(2004). Leadership for social justice and equity: Weaving a transformative framework and pedagogy. Educational Administration Quarterly, 40, 77-108.

11.

Chan

Elliott

R. G.

(2004). Relational analysis of personal epistemology and conceptions about teaching and learning. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 817-831.

12.

Chiu

Hong

(2013). Social psychology of culture. Hoboken, NJ: Taylor & Francis.

13.

Claro

Paunesku

Dweck

C. S.

(2016). Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113, 8664-8668.

14.

Cross

T. L.

Bazron

B. J.

Dennis

K. W.

Isaacs

M. R.

(1989). Toward a culturally competent system of care: A monograph on effective services for minority children who are severely emotionally disturbed. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Child Development Center.

15.

Darder

(2012). Culture and power in the classroom: Educational foundations for the schooling of bicultural students. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.

16.

De Castella

Byrne

(2015). My intelligence may be ore malleable than yours: The revised implicit theories of intelligence (self-theory) scale is a better predictor of achievement, motivation, and student disengagement. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 30, 245-267.

17.

Dweck

C. S.

(2000). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.

18.

Dweck

C. S.

(2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York, NY: Random House.

19.

Dweck

C. S.

(2015). Growth. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 242-245.

20.

Feagin

J. R.

Barnett

B. M.

(2004). Success and failure: How systemic racism trumped the Brown v Board of Education decision. University of Illinois Law Review, 2004, 1099-1130.

21.

George

Mallery

(2016). IBM SPSS statistics 23 step by step: A simple guide and reference (14th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

22.

Goldring

Gray

Bitterman

(2013). Characteristics of public and private elementary and secondary school teachers in the United States: Results from the 2011-2012 schools and staffing survey. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013314.pdf

23.

Hess

F. M.

Meeks

(2010). School boards circa 2010: Governance in the accountability era. Alexandria, VA: National School Board Association.

24.

Howard

Whitaker

(2011). Unsuccessful and successful mathematics learning: Developing students’ perceptions. Journal of Developmental Education, 35(2), 2-16.

25.

Howard

T. C.

(2010). Why race and culture matter in schools: Closing the achievement gap in America’s classrooms. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

26.

Kellerman

(2012). The end of leadership. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

27.

Kober

(2007). Why we still need public schools: Public education for the common good. Washington, DC: Center on Education Policy.

28.

Leroy

Bressoux

Sarrazin

Trouiloud

(2007). Impact of teachers’ implicit theories and perceived pressures on the establishment of an autonomy supportive climate. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 22, 529-545.

29.

Lessard

Grossman

Syme

M. L.

(2015). Effects of gender and type of praise on task performance among undergraduates. Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research, 20, 11-17.

30.

Lindsey

R. B.

Nuri-Robins

Terrell

R. D.

(2009). Cultural proficiency: A manual for school leaders. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

31.

Lindsey

R. B.

Roberts

L. M.

Campbell Jones

(2013). The culturally proficient school: An implementation guide for school leaders (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

32.

Maccoby

E. E.

(2000). Perspectives on gender development. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 24, 398-406.

33.

Magno

(2012). Implicit theories of intelligence, achievement goal orientation, and academic achievement of engineering students. The International Journal of Research and Review, 9, 32-43.

34.

Marzano

R. J.

(2007). The art and science of teaching: A comprehensive framework for effective instruction. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

35.

Mathes

P. G.

Denton

C. A.

Fletcher

J. M.

Anthony

J. L.

Francis

D. J

. (2005). The effects of theoretically different instruction and student characteristics on the skills of struggling readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 40, 148-182.

36.

Milner

H. R.

(2012). Beyond a test score: Explaining opportunity gaps in educational practice. Journal of Black Studies, 43, 693-718.

37.

Molden

D. C.

Dweck

C. S.

(2006). Finding “meaning” in psychology: A lay theories approach to self-regulation, social perception, and social development. The American Psychologist, 61, 192-203.

38.

Moser

P. K.

(1995). Epistemology. In Audi

(Ed.), Cambridge dictionary of philosophy (pp. 233-238). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

39.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2016a). Public high school 4-year adjusted cohort graduation rate (ACGR), by race/ethnicity and selected demographics for the United States, the 50 states, and the District of Columbia: School year 2014–15 [Data file]. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/tables/ACGR_RE_and_characteristics_2014-15.asp

40.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2016b). Racial/ethnic enrollment in public schools. Retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/pdf/Indicator_CGE/coe_CGE_2016_05.pdf

41.

National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future. (1996). What matters most: Teaching for America’s future. Retrieved from www.teaching-point.net/Exhibit%20A/What%20Matters%20Most.pdf

42.

National Education Association. (2006). NEA’s vision, mission, and values. Retrieved from http://www.nea.org/home/19583.htm

43.

Nelson

J. A.

Bustamante

R. M.

Wilson

E. D.

Onwuegbuzie

A. J.

(2008). The school-wide cultural competence observation checklist for school counselors: An exploratory factor analysis. Professional School Counseling, 11, 207-217.

44.

Nuri-Robins

K. J.

Lindsey

D. B.

Lindsey

R. B.

Terrell

R. D.

(2011). Culturally proficient instruction: A guide for people who teach (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

45.

Office for Civil Rights. (2016). 2013-2014 civil rights data collection: A first look. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

46.

Ouellette

J. A.

Wood

(1998). Habit and intention in everyday life: The multiple processes by which past behavior predicts future behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 124, 54-74.

47.

Perry

W. G.

(1970). Forms of intellectual and ethical development in the college years: A scheme. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.

48.

Rattan

Good

Dweck

C. S.

(2012). “It’s ok—Not everyone can be good at math”: Instructors with an entity theory comfort (and demotivate) students. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 731-737.

49.

Schmidt

J. A.

Shumow

Kackar-Cam

H. Z.

(2017). Does mindset intervention predict students’ daily experience in classrooms? A comparison of seventh and ninth graders’ trajectories. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 46, 582-602.

50.

Schommer

(1990). Effects of beliefs about the nature of knowledge on comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 498-504.

51.

Schommer

(1993). Epistemological development and academic performance among secondary students. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 406-411.

52.

Schraw

Bendixen

L. D.

Dunkle

M. E.

(2002). Development and validation of the Epistemic Belief Inventory (EBI). In Hofer

B. K.

Pintrich

P. R.

(Eds.), Personal epistemology: The psychology of beliefs about knowledge and knowing (pp. 261-275). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

53.

Schraw

Olafson

(2002). Teachers’ epistemological world views and educational practices. Issues in Education, 8, 99-149.

54.

Shim

S. S.

Cho

Cassady

(2013). Goal structures: The role of teachers’ achievement goals and theories of intelligence. The Journal of Experimental Education, 81, 84-104.

55.

Tabachnick

B. G.

Fidell

L. S.

(2012). Using multivariate statistics (6th ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

56.

Tatum

B. D.

(2007). Can we talk about race? And other conversations in an era of school resegregation. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

57.

Taggart

. (2017). The role of cultural discontinuity in the academic outcomes of Latino/a high school students. Education and Urban Society, 49, 731-761.

58.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. ( 2015). Employment and unemployment of recent high school graduates and dropouts. Career Outlooks.

59.

Vogt

W. P.

Johnson

R. B.

(2011). Dictionary of statistics & methodology: A nontechnical guide for the social sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

60.

Yeager

D. S.

Johnson

Spitzer

B. J.

Trzesniewski

K. H.

Powers

Dweck

C. S.

(2014). The far-reaching effects of believing people can change: Implicit theories of personality shape stress, health, and achievement during adolescence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106, 867-884.

61.

Yeager

D. S.

Romero

Paunesku

Hulleman

C. S.

Schneider

Hinojosa

. . . Dweck

C. S.

(2016). Using design thinking to improve psychological interventions: The case of the growth mindset during the transition to high school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 108, 374-391.