Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice Vol. 23(1) 2023 185 Development and Validation of Semantic Differential Scale to Assess Teachers Belief Towards Socially Disadvantaged Students Sourav Choudhury Lovely Professional University Vijay Kumar Chechi Lovely Professional University This paper intended to record the process of developing and validating a Semantic Differential Scale to assess the teacher’s belief on socially disadvantaged students in the Indian context. Social Identity Theory (SIT) and Stereotype Content Model (SCM) has been adopted. Following the new method of developing SDS proposed by Ding et al. (2008), the process resulted in a 15-item scale with a three-factorial structure. The reliability and validity of the scale according to the new method were tested with SPSS 26 and Amos 26, with Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients greater than 0.962. With good indices on reliability and validity, the instrument is likely to be useful to both academicians and practitioners interested in assessing the addressed context. Keywords: teachers belief, socially disadvantaged, sematic differential scale, India INTRODUCTION Dissimilar educational prospects and results along racial and socio-economic ranks are among the constant impediments confronting Indian society (Das & Pathak, 2012; Dash, 2004; Jhingran & Sankar, 2009). The impact of social imbalance on education has incited impressive attention about whether schools should be considered responsible for racial and socio-economic variations in scholarly results, or if settled in disparity in a very difficult society implies a few students face difficulties excessively hard for teachers and schools on the whole to outlast. However, broad proof and evidence demonstrate teacher-related factors alongside non-school factors to essentially drive students' scholarly results (Namrata, 2011a; Rashidi & Moghadam, 2015; When Schools Continue to Exclude, Can Education Reduce Caste Discrimination in India? n.d.). Former research in psychology has rooted individual teachers' convictions and beliefs regarding whether students’ social class represents a snag inside the idea of "teacher adequacy". Early on, the development of scales to quantify a teacher’s viability like Gibson & Dembo, 1984; Guskey & Passaro, 1994; Passaro et al., 1994 demonstrated a complex idea, with an element of "general teaching viability" mirroring the degree to which a teacher sees outer impediments to successful teaching. Nonetheless, ongoing psychological research has centered around the individual-based element of "individual teaching adequacy" (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001) and has to a great extent overlooked the "general teaching viability" idea that all the more intently bears on the thought that they, the teachers can have a