Intervening from the start
The psychologists conducted two studies with a diverse mix of boys and girls: one with 669 students starting seventh grade at two middle schools with large Latino populations in the western United States and a second with 137 students beginning sixth grade at a middle school with a large black population in New England.
To better understand interactions between students and classroom teachers, the psychologists focused on when their relationship begins: the start of the school year, which for many middle schoolers can feel daunting. Students may wonder if they will fit in to the new environment, whether they will make friends and if their new teachers will treat them well. Some might question whether they are prepared for a more challenging academic environment.
These concerns are particularly acute for students of color, Walton said. In addition to dealing with the changes and emotions that middle school brings, they must reckon with a growing awareness of racial stereotypes and the possibility that these stereotypes could affect how they are treated.
“This is a context ripe for worries about belonging,” Walton said. “And if you are already worried about belonging and mistreatment, bad early experiences can seem to confirm your fears.”
For both studies, the researchers developed a social-belonging intervention based on Walton and Cohen’s previous research on the transition to college. They found that sharing stories about normal worries about belonging and how belonging improves with time helped first-generation and minority students build a sense of belonging and supported their academic success.
Here, in two 25-minute class sessions, sixth and seventh grade students read stories from older pupils that emphasized normal challenges to belonging in middle school. In one story, a student said, “I didn’t like taking tests at the beginning of sixth grade … I thought I wasn’t prepared and that my teachers … would think I wasn’t smart. Sometimes … my stomach hurt. But the teachers were really nice. They helped me get better even if I didn’t do well at first.” Next, students reflected on why students in middle school might worry about “fitting in” at first and why they might feel more confident over time.
Some students in the first study also completed additional exercises, including one focused on a growth mindset. They learned that intelligence can grow with hard work, effective strategies and help from others – a message that can help students persevere through challenges, Walton said. Others had an opportunity to reflect on their core values – an exercise Walton also hoped could promote belonging and help students navigate potentially threatening experiences in school.
Improving student-teacher interactions
In the first study, black and Latino boys who received the three exercises together received 57 percent fewer reports of discipline issues in seventh and eighth grade compared with peers in the control group. The growth mindset exercise alone was also effective: reports were reduced by 75 percent compared with the control condition.
In addition, the exercises seemed to cut off negative cycles with teachers. In the second study, the researchers found that black boys in the control group experienced a rise in discipline citations that required the subjective judgment of teachers, such as insubordination in sixth grade and then again in seventh grade. Each year subjective citations started low but increased over the year. These experiences can both reflect and fuel a toxic relationship between students and teachers, Walton said.
By the end of seventh grade, these black boys also reported a lower sense of belonging and greater worries about being treated in accordance with negative stereotypes.
But as the researchers found, the belonging intervention prevented those exacerbating patterns where negative experiences can compound. Teacher reports of discipline issues among black boys started low in sixth and seventh grades and stayed low over each school year.
Altogether, the belonging intervention delivered in two classes early in sixth grade reduced discipline citations for black boys by 65 percent through the end of high school – a seven-year period – closing the disparity with white boys by 75 percent.
The researchers emphasized that there are many causes of racial disparities in school discipline citations that can also be addressed, such as changing policies around discipline and teacher behavior.
“But it is also important to consider the psychological experience of children,” Goyer said. “This experience can interact with social contexts to create and maintain differences between groups. Yet when this experience is addressed early enough, it is possible to forestall a negative cycle and make it positive.”
In addition to lead authors J. Parker Goyer and Geoffrey Cohen and senior author Gregory Walton, Stanford co-authors include Wonhee Lee and Amelia Henderson. Other authors include Jonathan Cook from Pennsylvania State University, Allison Master from the University of Washington, Nancy Apfel from Yale University, Stephanie Reeves from Ohio State University, and Jason Okonofua from the University of California, Berkeley.
The research was supported by grants from the William T. Grant Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Raikes Foundation and the Spencer Foundation.