Reaching Higher: The Power of Expectations in Schooling. Rhona S. Weinstein. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. 345 pp.
SUSAN BOBBITT NOLEN
University of Washington
The idea of self-fulfilling prophecies has been around education for a long time. It makes intuitive sense: Teachers' low expectations for certain children, because of racism, classism, or other forms of bias, lead to differential opportunities to learn. Poor children and children of color are disproportionately assigned to lower instructional groups, lower tracks, and given fewer opportunities for enrichment. These restricted opportunities lead to lower achievement, more educational barriers, and increased dropout. Yet the results of most experimental and correlational research on self-fulfilling prophesies have been disappointing. Effect sizes tend to be small, correlations weak. Critics of this research have suggested that casting the problem of differential performance as "all in the heads" of teachers oversimplifies a complex problem, and risks holding teachers accountable for what should properly be attributed to poverty, racism, and a host of other societal factors (e.g., Wineburg 1987).
In her book, Rhona Weinstein argues persuasively that this definition is much too narrow. To understand the power of expectations, one must take into account the ecology of differential performance, from carryover and cumulative effects through a child's academic career to the impact of institutional expectations of schools and societies. Grounding her readers in data from case histories and ethnographic work, Weinstein shows how research that acknowledges the complex and cumulative effects of low expectations can lead to changes in schooling that give all students the opportunity to achieve. Hers differs from other calls for "raising the bar" in its emphasis on providing differential supports to help all children reach standards and beyond.
In the early chapters, Weinstein reviews previous work on the effects of teacher expectancy and provides data from her own observational study of two fifth-grade teachers and their students. Although necessary to the book, these chapters are not the most interesting. The classroom descriptions take on a flavor of "good teacher, bad teacher," that threatens to oversimplify the processes involved. More intriguing are the chapters on achievement histories and intervention projects. The work on critical incidents and their power in shaping students' academic identities is particularly provocative. Fleeting, yet often casual, comments made by adults can apparently take on an amazing significance in the minds of young learners, creating unnecessary barriers or lifting students over them. We need to understand how and why this happens.
A sometimes underappreciated aspect of an ecological approach to psychology is the premise that individuals interact with elements of their environments, influencing as well as being influenced by people and events. Weinstein discusses this in relation to the work on critical incidents. She also describes research that found that, on the one hand, children in a fifth-grade classroom with more differentiated treatment (practices that pointed to differences in performance and privileged high achievers) tended to perceive treatment in their sixth-grade classroom as more differentiated. On the other hand, children with less differentiated treatment perceived the same sixth-grade classroom as less differentiated. More important, students from the more differentiated fifth-grade classroom, in comparison to their peers who were in a less differentiated classroom, had perceptions of their own ability that conformed to their teacher's expectations. To the extent that students' self-expectations limit their engagement and persistence, they become co-constructors of their own barriers.
Weinstein quotes former Under Secretary of Education Sharon Robinson, who asked, given what we already know about helping all students achieve, "What is keeping us from getting there?" (p.196). This is where Weinstein's work on education systems becomes critical. Raising achievement for all requires both changing expectations throughout the system and changing the kinds of supports we provide all learners. Weinstein provides two case studies of a private elementary school and a public high school attempting to do this. Although both are informative, the public school case provides the clearest look at the role of systems in "getting there." (Her chapter on the cultures of university work provides a different, yet informative analysis.)
The case chronicles a group of public high school teachers and administrators attempting to break the cycle of differentiated expectations in a tracked system. Targeting the lowest performing incoming ninth graders, they collaborated with Weinstein and her colleagues to change the expectancies of both teachers and students. This required confronting the realities of the culture of expectations for teachers. Sharing teaching strategies, observing and being observed by administrators and other teachers, and taking on the challenge of teaching at-risk students were seen as inherently risky in a climate characterized by competition and lack of trust. In short, the teachers lived in a culture of differential treatment. Changing teachers' expectations for students required changing expectations for themselves, their colleagues, and the policies within which they worked. Entrenched aspects of the system that enshrined low expectations were addressed. Results were mixed and the challenge was very difficult, but the efforts were sustained well beyond the two-year initial commitment. In short, there was no quick fix.
In the current climate of "No Child Left Behind" and the press for simplistic interventions with easily measured outcomes, Weinstein's book offers a contrasting view: Real change in achievement requires interventions that change not only teachers' expectations for their students, but expectations of and for the people and institutions that make up educational systems. It requires long-term commitment and a willingness to address systemic constraints. It also requires a willingness to listen to the voices of children, teachers, administrators, and parents; something that Rhona Weinstein has been doing for a long time. The title of the book, "Reaching Higher," is well chosen and reflects both the uncertainties and the promise of this undertaking.
©2004 American Anthropological Association. This review is cited in the June 2004 issue (35:2) of Anthropology & Education Quarterly. It is indexed in the December 2004 issue (35:4).