Diverse Factors, Including Language, Impact Schooling

Photo credit: Marlayna Demond for UMBC

This UMBC News article, “UMBC researchers address diverse factors impacting U.S. schooling,” describes recent press coverage of three UMBC faculty for our research on “factors that shape K–12 education in the United States”. As the article notes,

Christine Mallinson, professor of language, literacy, and culture, writes in The Conversation about how language differences among students can affect student outcomes. “Studies have found that at all levels of education, instructors often favor students who sound like themselves and can be biased against those who don’t,” writes Mallinson. Compounding the problem, “As the U.S. student population continues to rapidly diversify along cultural and linguistic lines, the demographics of the teacher population remain stable at roughly 82 percent white and predominantly female,” meaning non-white students experience negative bias more often.