Teaching Behavior and Positive and Negative Affect in High School Students: Does Students’ Race Matter?

There are clear, empirical associations between teaching behaviors and students’ affect. Yet no study to date has investigated whether teaching behaviors (i.e., instructional, organizational, socio-emotional, and negative) impact students’ affect differently based on race/ethnicity. This gap in the literature is concerning given the substantial academic and mental health disparities between African American (AA) and European American (EA) students. Thus, the present study examined whether differences exist in the associations between teaching behaviors and affect in AA and EA high school students. Participating AA and EA high school students (N = 968; 60.2% EA) completed the Teaching Behavior Questionnaire and the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Scale for Children. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we found a positive association between instructional teaching behavior and positive affect in EA but not AA students; this association was significantly stronger in EA than in AA students (p < .05). There was a positive association between socio-emotional teaching behavior and positive affect (p < .05) for AA and EA students; race did not moderate this finding (p > .05). Finally, there was a negative association between negative teaching behavior and positive affect in EA but not AA students; race did not moderate this finding (p > .05). Regarding negative affect, socio-emotional and negative teaching behavior were positively associated with negative affect (p < .05) in EA and AA students, respectively. Race did not moderate these associations (p > .05). The implications and limitations of the study are discussed.