An experiment on preservice teachers’ judgments and attributions of student achievement: The role of ethnic minority students’ language spoken at home

Teachers and preservice teachers alike perceive that when ethnic minority students speak their ethnic minority language at home and in leisure time, such a practice has a negative impact on their academic achievement. Research has also primarily shown negative correlations between speaking the ethnic minority language and academic achievement. The aim of this study was to experimentally investigate whether preservice teachers’ judgments differed for a Turkish-origin student who spoke Turkish versus German at home. In a sample of 207 preservice teachers, German and Turkish language proficiency and mathematics achievement judgments were assessed for a vignette describing a below-average Turkish-origin student. Although all student information was held constant, the preservice teachers judged the student who spoke Turkish at home as lower in German and higher in Turkish language proficiency than the student who spoke German at home. However, the student for whom no language information was provided was judged worst in German language proficiency. Only for the student without language information was the language endorsed as a reason for the low achievement. For all other students, the discrimination in the educational system and a lack of integration into the host society were endorsed as the main reasons. In sum, the results show that preservice teachers hold a deficit-oriented perspective because they seem to ignore the benefits of bilingualism.