Minority teachers in particular may be perceived more favorably by minority students because they can serve as role models and are particularly sensitive to the cultural needs of their students. (Cherng, 2016, p.2)

“Pre-service teachers should also be exposed to multiple diverse populations in their practice and service learning experiences. Educations programs should facilitate more developmentally appropriate service learning, and require professionally relevant service learning with observation components before students can earn their license.” (Abdullah, Llanes, & Henry, 2015, p. 40)

“Fifty years after school desegregation, white middle-class students are still being raised in racially segregated schools (Orfield, & Lee 2007), attending segregated social and religious institutions and having little or no experience with members of other racial groups. When they arrive at predominantly white higher education institutions such as the one in this study, they find even greater opportunities to share their preconceptions, reinforce their stereotypes and continue avoiding other cultures rather than utilizing the opportunities to familiarize themselves with other perspectives” (Abdullah, 2015, p. 34).

“An assumption can hamper one’s ability to understand cultural and experiential differences that may exist among their future students.” (Abdullah, Llanes, & Henry, 2015, p. (Abdullah, Llanes, & Henry, 2015, p. 38)

“This phenomenon also can be seen in schools that serve low-income populations that are also white and in African-American environments and increasingly in Latin, Asian and Middle Eastern populations. There’s recurring evidence that teachers are entering classrooms cross-racially incompetent; meaning they have never had significant experiences with students from different racial backgrounds” (Abdullah, 2015, p. 35).

The vast demographic divide between teachers and students is of growing educational and public concern. (Cherng, 2016, p. 1)

A majority of the students found it hard to empathize with the some of the people that they worked with and maintained a “them versus us” mentality, evidenced by some of their comparisons across racial lines and the use of words like “them”, “those people”, “American” when referring to themselves and related terms that create clear divisions between the preservice teachers and the people they worked with on their service learning projects” (Abdullah, 2015, p. 37).

“If pre-service teachers do in fact suffer from what we call White Disadvantage, then it could be argued that they are not able to meet the standards set forth in the state Quality Teaching Standards and should technically not be licensed to teach in this particular state” (Abdullah, 2015, p. 40).

Second, the outcome measures used in our analyses (see Measures section) were assessed using different forms in primary and secondary grades. (Cherng, 2016, p. 3)

Since their previous mostly segregated life experience guided their thinking and performance of their assigned pre-teaching task they find that they are not as successful as they expected or hoped.” (Abdullah, Llanes, & Henry, 2015, p. 34)

Recent research has found that teachers’ classroom-aggregate ratings on the Tripod predict students learning gains not only for the students who provided the rating but also for students in other classrooms of students taught by the same teacher (Raudenbush & Jean, 2014). This work indicates that students are able to reliably identify meaningful features of their teachers’ practices. (Cherng, 2016, p. 3)

“Many of the reflections referred to the personal life and upbringing of the preservice teachers themselves. The reflections also discussed the communities that the writers were from, including their education, and social experiences prior to enrolling in the teacher education program” (Abdullah, 2015, p. 36).

• “The course described in this study was both classroom-based and field-based. Students were placed in schools and school-like environments where students performed a service-learning activity. This was a required course for certification as a teacher in this state. More specifically, the Educational Foundations course focused on eight goals for pre-service teachers” (Abdullah, 2015, p. 36).

“Despite these limitations, findings from this article attest to the importance of having diversity among the teaching force. Research has shown that students’ perceptions of teachers are associated with motivation and achievement and that having a more diverse teaching force can help close longstanding racial achievement gaps.” (Chernig & Halpin, 2016, p. 11)

"For example, students report that Latino and Black teachers are clearer than White teachers, and the differences equal 0.14 and 0.11 standard deviations, respectively," (Cherng and Halpin p. 5).

Ladson-Billings (1992) encourages white pre-service teachers to develop self-concepts and understandings of their students that are based on historical facts and current events and avoid thinking of their students of color as victims of slavery and other forms of discrimination” (Abdullah, 2015, p. 35).

"The covariates imputed were the student's math test scores, teachers' years of experience, and whether the teacher had a master's degree," (Cherng and Halpin p. 5).

“Asian, Latino, and Black students have more favorable perceptions of teachers’ abilities to captivate their attention, consolidate information, and clarify information compared to their White peers. Moreover, female students also have more favorable perceptions of teachers across six of the seven outcome measures (the exception is control, for which girls are similar in their perceptions to boys).”