Stereotype Threat

"Claude Steele speaks to a group of educators and students at Castlemont High School in Oakland CA in November 2011. His discussion of stereotype threat is followed by a panel discussion and questions from the audience."

A YouTube Playlist on videos, lectures, tv interviews, related to Stereotype Threat.

"Stereotype threat is the experience of anxiety in a situation where a person has the potential to confirm a negative stereotype about his or her social group. In school, stereotype threat can cause underrepresented students to perform below their potential. It can cause them to focus less on learning and more on the worrisome prospect of performing poorly. The sting of stereotype threat can be felt by anyone male or female, black or white, Asian or Latino, young or old. But when the threat is chronic, it can contribute to enduring patterns of inequality in school and beyond. What can be done to reverse the effects of stereotype threat? "

Social factors can have a powerful influence on intelligence.

Steele discusses how students who belong to groups that have been negatively stereotyped are likely to perform less well in situations such as a standardized tests in which they feel they are being evaluated through the lens of that stereotype.

The purpose of this article is to provide a summary and overview of published research on stereotype threat. It contains highlights from the reducingstereotypethreat.org web site by Stroessner and Good. You are strongly encouraged to visit this site for a more comprehensive review. By doing so you may increase your understanding of the phenomenon known as stereotype threat and gain strategies to reduce its occurrence and impact (Johns, Schmader, & Martens, 2005).

SHIELDING STUDENTS FROM STEREOTYPE THREAT A G U I D E F O R T E AC H E R S Shielding Students from Stereotype Threat: A Guide for Teachers

"Research shows that students' mindsets about school can be changed*. When they are, students become more engaged. Their grades and test scores improve. But it is not always clear how to change mindsets effectively in different types of schools. That's where PERTS comes in. "

"Research shows that students' mindsets about school can be changed*. When they are, students become more engaged. Their grades and test scores improve. But it is not always clear how to change mindsets effectively in different types of schools. That's where PERTS comes in. "

"As so many studies have demonstrated, success in math and the hard sciences, far from being a matter of gender, is almost entirely dependent on culture - a culture that teaches girls math isn't cool and no one will date them if they excel in physics; a culture in which professors rarely encourage their female students to continue on for advanced degrees; a culture in which success in graduate school is a matter of isolation, competition and ridiculously long hours in the lab; a culture in which female scientists are hired less frequently than men, earn less money and are allotted fewer resources. And yet, as I listened to these four young women laugh at the stereotypes and fears that had discouraged so many others, I was heartened that even these few had made it this far, that theirs will be the faces the next generation grows up imagining when they think of a female scientist."

"Stereotype threat-performance-crippling fear of being judged based on cultural stereotypes-that often proves a heavy burden. Being an outsider, a Mexican woman in a mostly white business world, 'is always in the back of my head,' she says. 'I wonder, Am I not being heard because of who I am and how I am speaking? Am I being overlooked?"

"Dartmouth Athletic Director Harry Sheehy, who appears twice in the video, is pleased that both current and former Dartmouth student-athletes are taking a stand against prejudice and intolerance. "We're very proud of the role that former Dartmouth athletes like Andrew Goldstein and Tanner Glass have played in raising the visibility of this issue, and this video gives our current student-athletes and staff a chance to voice our own strong support," he says. "As we watched the other videos and got to thinking about it, there are so many things student-athletes deal with," says Mark Hudak. "Some of it is sexual orientation, but there are also eating disorders, race, and religion, the list goes on and on. We didn't want to limit it to one thing." Student-athletes, coaches, and administrators quickly volunteered to appear in the video, speaking lines such as, "The color of your skin does matter. Your sexual orientation does matter. Your religious faith does matter, and so does your ethnicity.  They all matter to me because you're on my team.""

Strategies to mitigate stereotype threat among college students.

Founded in 1943, ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is an educational leadership organization dedicated to advancing best practices and policies for the success of each learner. Our 175,000 members in 119 countries are professional educators from all levels and subject areas--superintendents, supervisors, principals, teachers, professors of education, and school board members.

"If we are serious about closing achievement gaps, we will have to move beyond the simplistic rhetoric of "It's the family," or "It's the schools," or "It's poverty"-or "It's stereotyping," for that matter. " In this article, the author argues that stereotype threat, an invisible factor, negatively impacts the performance of affected students, ranging from African American males to girls in math-oriented domains. It may account for some of the achievement gap. Stereotype threat occurs when others have negative expectations of the student's performance based on some external stereotype. The student then has to overcome the inherent negative threat, thereby facing two potential failures - actually performing poorly and the perception of performing poorly because of the stereotype. Research by the author and a colleague demonstrates that due to this additional stress and pressure, the student does more poorly precisely because he or she tries too hard in a situation in which a more relaxed concentration leads to success, particularly in high-stakes evaluations. Because stereotype threat is partly situational, the author believes that students can be taught to overcome it and that teachers and others can learn to avoid it. (WestEd)

"An Education in Equality: Filmed over 13 years, this short film presents a coming-of-age story of an African-American boy who attends an elite Manhattan prep school."

How do I reduce the threat? "That's stereotype threat, and the chances are pretty good that being the only old lady in the class is going to hamper my ability to do my best on the exam, or even my ability to just focus well in lecture."

It isn't just that fewer women choose to go into fields involving science, engineering, technology and math. Even when they do and are successful, women are more likely than men to quit. Psychological research suggests the gender disparity may be, at least in part, the result of of a vicious psychological cycle.

Teachers College, Columbia University, is the oldest and largest graduate school of education in the United States, and also perennially ranked among the nation’s best. Its name notwithstanding, the College is committed to a vision of education writ large, encompassing our four core areas of expertise: health, education, leadership and psychology.

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