Are there socioeconomic inequalities in children’s mindset and teachers' mindset about children in elementary school?

This study investigated socioeconomic inequalities in children’s own mindset and teachers’ mindset about these children’s abilities in sixth grade of elementary school. More specifically, it examined a) whether socioeconomic status (SES) associated with children’s general, math, and reading mindset and b) whether teachers’ mindset about these same children’s math and reading abilities mediated the associations between SES and children’s own math and reading mindset. Participants were 396 children (53 % female, 89 % native Dutch, M age = 11.96) and 44 teachers (73 % female, M age = 41.28) from 13 elementary schools in the Netherlands. Children’s general, reading, and math mindsets were measured using self-report questionnaires. Teachers’ mindset about these same children’s math and reading abilities were teacher-specific and individual-child oriented. That is, teachers separately reported their mindsets about each participating child’s math and reading abilities, which reflected the extent to which teachers believed that each child's math and reading abilities were malleable. SES was operationalized by parents’ highest attained education levels ranging from elementary school education to a master’s degree or higher. Main effect results showed that compared to children from higher-SES backgrounds, children from lower-SES backgrounds had a weaker general growth mindset, trend-level but not significant weaker math growth mindset, and similar levels of reading growth mindset. Results from the mediation models showed that teachers’ mindset about children’s math and reading abilities were not mediators in the associations between SES and children’s math and reading mindset. That is, teachers’ mindset about children’s math and reading abilities did not differ by children’s SES backgrounds and did not associate with children’s own reading and math mindset. Future research using longitudinal designs with broader SES samples is encouraged to study alternative mechanisms that may explain SES-related differences in children's mindset in elementary school.