Effects of children's family structure status on the development of stereotypes by teachers.

Abstract

The possibility that teacher ratings of children may indicate a stereotype on the part of teachers was investigated by showing 30 teachers a videotape that focused on the social interaction of an 8-year-old boy. Half of the teachers were given a background information sheet that indicated he was from a divorced home, while the other half were informed that he was from an intact home. The teachers were asked to view the videotape and then to rate the boy on a wide range of 11 personality traits (e.g., anxiety, social deviance, and happiness) and to predict what his behavior would be like in five different school situations (e.g., copes with stress and popularity). The Bonferroni multiplecomparisons procedure indicated that the teachers rated the divorced child more negatively on the following three variables reflecting affective state or relations: happiness, emotional adjustment, and copes with stress. Adverse effects of father absence on social and cognitive development have been reported in several reviews (e.g., Biller, 1970; Lynn, 1974; Lamb, 1976). Nonetheless, a number of methodologica l problems has