A quantitative study of teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding fair classroom differentiation

Abstract

AbstractTeachers must make choices about distributing resources and how to differentiate in the classroom. These choices are morally significant because they affect pupils’ learning opportunities. This article reports the findings of an exploratory study of primary school teachers’ differentiation beliefs and practices, which are assessed using the principles of distributive justice (equity, equality and need). A survey was completed by 294 primary school teachers. Latent profile analysis (LPA), a person-centered approach, was employed to explore the typology of teachers’ distributive justice preferences based on their differentiation beliefs. In addition, Wald chi-square analyses were conducted to identify the differences among the profiles in terms of the application of different differentiation practices. Using LPA, we distinguished four different teacher profiles regarding their beliefs about the distribution of educational resources, such as attention and support, and educational outcomes via classroom differentiation. Most teachers predominantly supported the principle of equity alongside the principle of equality in terms of equal resources to all pupils. However, teachers’ beliefs regarding differentiation had weak correlations with their differentiation practices, thus indicating that the differentiation practices used did not reflect teachers’ beliefs. We suggest that teachers should use the principles of distributive justice to reflect on ethical differentiation dilemmas.