Introduction to the Special Issue Teacher Educators for Children with Behavioral Disorders (TECBD) Conference.

Patton et al. (2020) looked at how teachers give feedback to students. They compared Black and White teachers. They watched the same kids behave the same way.

The study checked if teachers gave different feedback based on the student's race.

Both Black and White teachers gave more negative feedback to Black students. This happened even when the students behaved the same.

The teachers did not give more negative feedback to White students for the same behaviors.

Neely et al. (2020) found that culturally adapted training helps teachers. Their study showed teachers improved after learning about Latinx culture. This extends R et al.'s work by showing a solution.

Striefel et al. (1974) showed that simple feedback can reduce problem behavior. But R et al. shows this feedback might be unfair to Black students. The papers seem to disagree, but they don't. S et al. looked at whether feedback works. R et al. looked at whether it's fair.

Green et al. (1975) used token economies to make teachers give more positive comments. This is important because R et al. found teachers give too many negative comments to Black students.

You might be giving more negative feedback to Black students without knowing it. Track your feedback for one week. Count how many positive and negative comments you give to each student. Compare by race. If you see a pattern, try the fixes from Neely et al. (2020) and Green et al. (1975). Add cultural context to your training. Use token systems to balance your feedback. Your words shape student behavior and self-image.