Racialized Perceptions of Black, Brown, and Indigenous Elementary Students in Rural Great Plains–Midwest Classrooms: A QuantCrit Case Study

Critical Race Theory (CRT) posits that racism is a commonplace and enduring feature of United States (U.S.) society. Consequently, Black, Brown, and/or Indigenous (BBI; i.e., Black, Indigenous, and People of Color; minorities) individuals within the U.S. experience systematic inequalities starting from an early age. BBI students may face invisibility, hypervisibility, and/or social exclusion in the classroom; further, societal racism impacts teachers' perceptions of these students as well. Drawing on Critical Race Theory and QuantCrit, this quantitative case study evaluates rural Great Plains-Midwest kindergarten teachers’ perceptions of their students’ student-teacher relationships, temperament, and academic achievement. We specifically center teachers’ perceptions of BBI students in these classrooms, where they constitute a super-minority among predominantly white peers. Findings contribute to the limited research on elementary-aged BBI students in rural Great Plains-Midwest classrooms and illustrate how teacher perceptions may reflect or reproduce racialized assumptions in these contexts.