Structural, school-level approaches to address teachers' explicit immigration attitudes¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 5 claims (5 for) · 1 study (1 associational), q3 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 5 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The article recommends structural, school-level approaches over individual bias-awareness training alone, noting that "interventions that target only individual bias awareness rarely yield lasting change." Suggested approaches include providing structured opportunities for teachers to collectively reflect on their beliefs, learn about cultural differences, and adopt inclusive strategies; identifying influential teachers to lead school climate discussions; and implementing structural policies that limit opportunities for bias, such as anonymized testing or cross-grading of exams.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Requires institutional support such as leadership and policy backing for collective reflection and structural policies

Constraints¶

• The article states individual bias-awareness interventions alone rarely yield lasting change

Target Learners¶

• teachers
• first-generation immigrant students

Target Learning Goals¶

• reducing prejudice
• building multicultural competencies
• narrowing immigrant achievement gaps

Affordances¶

• Aggregated Teacher Attitudes Normative Climate Indicator

Claims¶

• The achievement gap between native-born and first-generation immigrant students is smaller in schools with more inclusionary teacher immigration attitudes across all three subjects [+M]
• The interaction between school diversity climate (aggregated teachers' immigration attitudes) and immigrant status significantly predicts performance in science, mathematics, and reading [+M]
• First-generation immigrant students perform better in science, mathematics, and reading in schools where teachers hold more inclusionary immigration attitudes [+M]
• The climate × immigrant status interaction is robust across alternative specifications, sampling weights, and multiple imputation [+M]
• School diversity climate shows no significant effect on performance for non-immigrant or second-generation students [+M]

Related Strategies¶

• Awareness of Implicit Biases
• Addressing Implicit Bias
• Know Your Own Perspectives
• Combine individual and organisational interventions, plus burnout awareness-raising, to protect achievement

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Anatolia Batruch, Nicolas Sommet, Eva G.T. Green. (2026). Teachers' immigration attitudes and students' performance. Learning and Instruction 102 (2026) 102303. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.learninstruc.2025.102303