Moody Myles D
University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA.
J Racial Ethn Health Disparities. 2016 Oct 31. doi: 10.1007/s40615-016-0298-9.
Prior research indicates that attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is underdiagnosed, or less likely to be diagnosed, among Black children relative to White children and children in other non-Black racial categories. Scholars have suggested that this may be a result of cultural biases or misconceptions that affect the ways classroom behavior is interpreted. The purpose of this pilot study was to engage a larger theoretical framework that explores the relationships between parents and teachers and to examine some of the ways in which common cultural misconceptions can lead to flawed behavioral ascriptions in the classroom, producing negative social outcomes for Black children. Findings from ethnography and interviews reveal that the most common barriers in this low-income neighborhood school setting included poor parent-teacher rapport, a general lack of basic understanding for how ADHD can affect classroom behavior, and faulty procedures in the school setting based on cultural stereotypes. These findings suggest that school officials' disinclination to recommend ADHD testing for Black children may be largely a result of the aforementioned obstacles. A larger study based on these results may produce more robust findings about the barriers that contribute to racial disparities in ADHD diagnoses.
先前的研究表明，相对于白人儿童和其他非黑人种族的儿童，注意力缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）在黑人儿童中诊断不足，或者说被诊断出的可能性较小。学者们认为，这可能是文化偏见或误解导致的结果，这些偏见或误解影响了对课堂行为的解读方式。这项试点研究的目的是采用一个更大的理论框架来探讨家长与教师之间的关系，并研究一些常见的文化误解如何导致课堂上对行为的错误归因，从而给黑人儿童带来负面的社会后果。人种志研究和访谈的结果显示，在这个低收入社区学校环境中，最常见的障碍包括家长与教师关系不佳、对ADHD如何影响课堂行为普遍缺乏基本了解，以及基于文化刻板印象的学校错误程序。这些研究结果表明，学校官员不愿为黑人儿童推荐ADHD测试，可能很大程度上是上述障碍造成的。基于这些结果进行的更大规模研究，可能会得出关于导致ADHD诊断中种族差异的障碍的更有力研究结果。
