Predictive Value of School Socioeconomic Status in Perceptions of Intelligence (2023)
Undergraduate: Vishal Easwar
Faculty Advisor: Jeffrey Greene
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience, School of Education
Understanding and addressing the relationship of socioeconomic status (SES) with education is a critical issue. Student SES group outcomes continue to diverge, signaling increasing inequity in schools. SES differences are also suggested by research to influence differential treatment by teachers, which affects students’ beliefs and performance. One possible mechanism through which school socioeconomic status (SSES) affects student performance is through students’ and teachers’ perceptions of intelligence (POI), which pertain to their beliefs about intelligence, including those of fixed and growth mindsets, associations of intelligence with school, and self-perceptions of intelligence. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine how POI in middle and high school teachers and students vary as a function of SSES. It is hypothesized that lower SSES will predict lower survey scores of teachers' and therefore students' POI, while higher SSES will predict higher survey scores of teachers' and therefore students' POI. It is being also investigated if there is any correlation between teachers’ and students’ fixed or growth mindsets of intelligence, self-perceptions of intelligence (or in the case of teachers, perceptions of students' intelligence), and associations of intelligence with school performance and attributes.
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