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This study investigated differences in 50 fifth through eighth grade students' perceptions of caring teacher behaviors. The analyses revealed that African American and female students were more likely to value behavior that encourages academic achievement than were White and male students, who were more likely to value warm interpersonal behaviors. (Contains 5 tables and 1 footnote.)

In U. S. schools, which have a primarily White teaching force but an increasingly non-White student population, students and teachers may not be able to complete caring encounters based on their differing communication patterns. Therefore, it is important to understand what behaviors students view as caring so that teachers can complete caring encounters with their students. This research investigated differences in 825 sixth-grade students' perceptions of teacher caring based on student minority status. The findings of this research demonstrate that care does look different to different groups of students. Therefore, teachers must care for their students in culturally congruent ways if all students are to receive the benefits of caring teacher-student relationships. (Contains 1 table.)

Because middle school is a time of identity development, it may also be an appropriate time to focus on students' conceptions of social roles. This article examines a unit focused on gender roles taught to a group of seventh grade language arts students at a private, urban school. The students deconstructed and reconstructed their gender schemas, gained awareness of gender as a lens, and began to question the adequacy of the male/female binary model. The findings suggest that ideas typically found in college-level courses may have appropriate applications in classrooms of much younger students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports the findings of a study investigating differences in 825 sixth-grade students' perceptions of caring teacher behaviors based on the intersections of student race, ethnicity, and gender. While this research is based on Noddings's ethic of care in schools (2005), it responds to concerns that her theory is mono-cultural (Thompson, 1998; 2003) by reorienting "[theories of care] in ways that systematically account for race, class, gender, cultural, and other differences" (Thompson, 1998:528). The findings of this research suggest that perceptions of teacher caring do vary based on the intersections of student race, ethnicity, and gender. Further investigations are needed into perceptions of teacher caring among specific subgroups of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]