The relationship of dogmatism in preservice and inservice teachers to their willingness to describe Afro and Mexican American women when given limited data

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1976

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Abstract

There was a need for this study because of the lack of research that attempts to investigate the theoretical structure of belief systems, measure them, and relate them to visual and oral language perceptions of minorities. Since a majority of school systems has populations that are diverse and pluralistic, a single school district may cater to several races, cultures, and ethnic groups that differ among and within each other. Teachers are an important component of the school's curriculum which students cannot fail to notice. The purpose of this research was to determine the extent to which teachers form attitudes about Afro American and Mexican American women based on limited data perceived when provided visual and/or oral language samples and the extent to which those perceptions are positively related to their Dogmatism Scale score. The intention was to explore the relationships, controlling for demographic variables and to ascertain if any of these factors were associated with the correlation. To do this six visual and oral language stimuli were rated by fifty preservice and fifty inservice teachers. All subjects had had some instruction in multiethnic relations. The measurement of the extent to which attitudes were formed was based on the respondents' scores on the T Opinion Scale, a semantic differential questionnaire. Consistent with the theoretical framework, the nonbiased responses (defined as the zero response option on the scale) were differentiated from all other possible responses. The nonzero responses were all treated equally, having been assigned a value of one. Therefore correlations were simply between the extent of biased responses and Dogmatism scores. [...]

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Keywords

Teachers--United States--Attitudes, Dogmatism, Discrimination in education--United States, Multicultural education--United States

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