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Robert S. Feldman
Nonverbal
Behavior, Race,
the
and
Classroom
Teacher
As
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47
verbal behaviors associated with particular attitudes. These nonverbal behaviors may be
representative of the teacher's generalized feeling
toward the student's race, relatively independent
of the particularstudent or circumstances, or the
behaviors may be a function of a teacher's more
specific attitude toward the particular student or
circumstances. In either case, the results of these
experiments suggest that both the white and black
teachers held attitudes favoring students of their
own race and that their nonverbalbehaviorrevealed
these underlyingattitudes.
Especially notable is the fact that the subjects
in these experiments were responding positively on
the verbal level toward their students while at the
same time responding relatively negatively on a
nonverballevel. The negativityof the teacher's nonverbal behavior was easy to detect, even in the
short 20-second samples that the judges were given,
suggesting that many incongruent messages probably were occurring during these interactions. In
actual classrooms, if such incongruities between
the teacher's verbal and nonverbal behavior are
present during interracial interactions, the exchanges may be quite unpleasant or at least confusing for both teacher and student. Both
participants might come away from the interaction
with existing prejudices confirmed, setting off a
cycle of negative attitudes leading to negative nonverbal behavior that supports and maintains the
original attitudes.
On the other hand, evidence fromour first study
indicates that only same-race judges were capable
of reliablydiscerning the nonverbal behavior of the
teacher. Does this suggest that we should not be
concerned if teachers are more positive toward
students of their own race? For example, if a black
student is not aware that his white teacher is more
nonverballypositive to white students than to black
students, it is possible that the black student will
not be affected directly by the teacher's display of
negative nonverbal behavior. This argument disregards the effect of the observation of the teacher's nonverbal behavior by those students of the
same race as the teacher, who are capable of
decoding the teacher's meaning. If, for instance,
white students are aware that their teacher displays
differential nonverbal behavior to white and black
students, the students may learn to behave nonverbally negatively toward blacks, as research on
modeling would suggest. Moreover, white students
may infer (correctly) that the teacher holds more
positive attitudes toward white students than to48
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asking people to make judgments about the meaning of samples of others' nonverbal behavior that
have been captured on videotape. After the observer makes a judgment, he or she receives immediate feedback either in the form of positive
reinforcement for a correct answer or a correction
if the response is incorrect. This has produced
significant improvements in accuracy (Rosenthal,
Hall, Archer, DiMatteo, & Rogers, 1979), although
it has not yet been used to teach decoding of
nonverbal behaviors relevant to interracial interaction. One could imagine, though, making videotapes of white and black students and training
teachers to learn the meaning of the nonverbal
behaviors on the tapes.
Perhaps the most reasonable route to followat this point in our understanding of black and white
nonverbal behavior-is to ensure that teachers are
sensitive to the fact that students of different races
may possess differing communicative codes and to
inform teachers of the likely nature of such differences. Furthermore, teachers should be aware of
their own attitudes and behavior and those situations in which they are likely to display negative
behaviors. Such awareness is at least a first step
in mitigating problems in black and white nonverbal
communication.
References
Byers, P., & Byers, H. (1972). Nonverbalcommunication
and the education of children. In C.B. Cazden, V.P.
John, & D. Hymes (Eds.), Functions of language in
the classroom. New York:Academic Press.
Crosby, F., Bromley, S., & Saxe, L. (1980). Recent unobtrusive studies of black and white discrimination
and prejudice:A literaturereview. Psychological Bulletin, 87, 546-563.
ip
VolumeXXIV,Number 1
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49