New teachers mistakenly assume Black students are angry

African American students are disproportionately punished, starting in preschool. Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post via Getty Images The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea College students who are training to become teachers are 36% more likely to mistakenly believe that a Black child is angry when that child isn’t making an angry face than if a white child makes the same facial expression, according to our new study. We determined this by having a group of 72 Black and white child actors trained by experts to make specific facial muscle movements. For example, to come across as surprised, the children raised their eyebrows and widened their eyes. To convey anger, the children furrowed their eyebrows and tightened their lips. We designed our study this way to make sure that no one could say maybe the Black children were making angry faces more often than the white children. They absolutely were not. Then we had teachers-in-training watch videos of the children making facial expressions and we asked them to identify each emotion they saw. Why it matters Black children are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled from school than their white classmates....