Teacher Ratings of Students in Relation to Ethnicity of Students and School Ethnic Balance

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Abstract
Presently, in order to identify more gifted minority students, alternative identification techniques are being employed in many school districts. One common technique has been the use of teacher checklists on which the teacher rates various types of student behaviors. The Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students (SRBCSS) are some of the most popular checklists; however, there is little research which indicates how culturally different children are rated on these scales in comparison to their Anglo peers. This study attempted to answer the following question: does the social and cultural milieu of a school influence teachers' ratings of culturally different children on the SRBCSS? In a large southwestern school district, three categories of schools were selected, and performance of Hispanic and Anglo students on the SRBCSS were compared. The findings were mixed, but indicated no significant difference on the Creativity scale, with some significant differences, related to school type and ethnicity of students, on the Learning, Motivation, and Leadership scales.