Racial and linguistic ideologies and formative assessment practices of U.S. science teachers: A preregistered conceptual replication and extension

Abstract

Language, race, and racism are deeply connected in the United States and throughout the world. Over the past 10 years, a growing body of research has argued that many language ideologies and racial ideologies are closely associated with each other. However, few studies have sought to quantify these proposed associations by directly measuring the language ideologies, racial ideologies, and language-related behaviors of participants. In a recently published study of K-12 preservice teachers, we identified substantial correlations between racial ideologies and seemingly race-neutral language ideologies, as well as correlations between these language ideologies and the written feedback participants generated during formative assessment of student science writing. These findings have important implications for the social sciences; however, their significance is contingent in part on their reproducibility and generalizability. For this reason, we conducted a preregistered conceptual replication and extension using a larger sample of current U.S. science teachers (n = 387 teachers from 42 U.S. states). We demonstrate that all but one of the findings from our previous study are successfully replicated, and we identify several new findings. We discuss implications for research in science education, linguistic anthropology, social psychology, and sociology.