Attitudes toward students from ethnic minority groups: The roles of preservice teachers' own ethnic backgrounds and teacher efficacy activation

The aims of the current paper were (a) to investigate preservice teachers' own ethnic background as a factor that affects attitudes and (b) to investigate the influence of an activation of teacher efficacy on attitudes toward students from ethnic minority groups. In a quasi-experimental design, implicit and explicit attitudes were assessed before the preservice teachers filled out a teacher efficacy questionnaire and in another group, attitudes were assessed after the questionnaire. Results showed that, in comparison with preservice teachers from the ethnic majority, the preservice teachers from ethnic minority groups had more favorable implicit and explicit attitudes toward students from ethnic minority groups. Activating participants' teacher efficacy did not affect attitudes of the preservice teachers from the ethnic majority, but it lowered positive implicit attitudes of preservice teachers from ethnic minority groups. The results highlight the need to explore factors that are able to change attitudes in either direction.