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Perceived Ethnic Discrimination by Teachers and Ethnic Minority Students’ Academic Futility: Can Parents Prepare Their Youth for Better or for Worse?

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Abstract

This study focuses on the interplay of perceived ethnic discrimination by teachers, parents’ ethnic socialization practices, and ethnic minority students’ sense of academic futility. Since discrimination creates barriers beyond control of the individual, the first research goal is to examine the association of perceived ethnic discrimination by teachers with ethnic minority students’ sense of academic futility. The second research goal is to focus on the role of perceived parental ethnic socialization (e.g., cultural socialization and preparation for bias) to get a better understanding of the interaction between family level factors and the potentially negative consequences of ethnic teacher discrimination. A multilevel analysis on 1181 ethnic minority students (50.6 % girls; mean age = 15.5), originating from migration, in 53 secondary schools in Flanders (Belgium) shows that the frequent perception of ethnic discrimination by teachers is associated with stronger feelings of academic futility, and if these students also received high levels of parents’ ethnic socialization, they perceive even stronger feelings of futility. The group of ethnic minority students, who perceive frequent ethnic teacher discrimination, is a group at risk, and parents’ ethnic socialization does not seem able to change this.

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Notes

  1. These analyses are not shown here, but can be obtained upon request.

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Funding

This article has been made possible by funding from the Special Research Fund of Ghent University [B/11666/02].

Author Contributions

FD contributed to the design and collection of the data, the development of the idea of the current study, drafted the manuscript and did the analyses and interpretation of the data. JE played a major role in the starting-phase of this article (e.g. brainstorming and discussing analyses) and revised the manuscript profoundly. PS contributed to the design and coordination of the data and revised the manuscript profoundly for several times. MVH contributed to the design and coordination of the data and revised the manuscript profoundly for several times. All authors read and approved the final version of this manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors report no conflict of interests.

Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

In each school, all third graders were asked to complete the questionnaire. A waiver of parental consent and the use of child consent were approved by the school and the Belgian Commission for the Protection of Privacy based on the minimal risk of the study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Korte Meer 5, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Fanny D’hondt & Mieke Van Houtte

  2. School of Education, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA

    Jacquelynne S. Eccles

  3. Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Peter A. J. Stevens

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  1. Fanny D’hondt
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  2. Jacquelynne S. Eccles
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  3. Mieke Van Houtte
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  4. Peter A. J. Stevens
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Correspondence to Fanny D’hondt.

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D’hondt, F., Eccles, J.S., Van Houtte, M. et al. Perceived Ethnic Discrimination by Teachers and Ethnic Minority Students’ Academic Futility: Can Parents Prepare Their Youth for Better or for Worse?. J Youth Adolescence 45, 1075–1089 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0428-z

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