The Effect of Teachers’ Cultural Stereotypical Belief on Academic Achievement among African American Males

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of teacher’s cultural stereotypical beliefs on the academic performance of African-American males. The population for this study consisted of 96 middle school reading and mathematics teachers from middle schools located in urban school districts in Southern and Midwest sections of the United States. A questionnaire was developed to gather the data. The data revealed any attempt to predict the reading achievement scores of African-American male students should include teachers’ cultural stereotypical beliefs components of blaming the victim, oppression, pseudoscience, temporal changes, educability, and heterodoxy. These factors account for 25 percent of the variance in reading achievement scores.