Inside Higher Ed runs an article (about an article) concerning student ratings of Asian-named instructors:
Last month, a study documented the extent to which students use different sets of words (many of them with gender implications)
to discuss their male and female professors. Now a new study looks at
how students on Rate My Professors rate instructors who have
Asian-sounding last names, and the results suggest that these
instructors are getting significantly lower scores than those with other
last names in Rate My Professors' categories of clarity and
helpfulness...
Many [Asian-named instructors] have accents, [said the study's author]. But they are not actually difficult to
understand if one makes a little effort. He said that he is concerned
that simply having an accent is being viewed as negative. Students
appear to be "pushing back against this extra labor of interacting with
their instructor, to overcome this extra difficulty that they face with
someone who doesn't share their background." He added that "this is a
big problem for an institution that wants to be an international
university." ...
Full article at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/03/02/study-finds-instructors-asian-last-names-receive-lower-scores-rate-my-professors
It would be interesting if, as part of some future "campus climate" study, someone took a look at this issue at UC campuses.
In the meantime, our advice to students:
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