An Investigation of Teacher’s ‘Color-Blind’ Racial Attitudes and Diversity Training Experiences: Implications for Teacher Education

Research demonstrates that skin color significantly impacts how students are treated (Lewis, 2001; Skiba,et al., 2002). Despite this, some teachers hold “color-blind” attitudes where they pretend not to notice or care about students’ ethnicity. This study explored the color-blind attitudes and diversity training
experiences of 46 elementary teachers. Teachers completed both a Color-bind Racial Attitude Survey (Neville, 2000) and a diversity training questionnaire. Teachers whose diversity training a) included a
“color-conscious” curriculum, b) was longer than one day, and c) taught how to address racial issues held significantly lower color-blind attitude scores. Implications for multicultural teacher education are
discussed.