- In this essay the authors discuss the ill effects of stereotype cues and stereotype threat both psychologically, and to a lesser degree, psychosomatically. Do you believe that stereotype threat has the propensity to physically affect, when activated, negatively stereotyped students?
- The authors write: "From hundreds of interviews that I've conducted with black college students, it's clear that many believe that the stereotype places them in situations freighted with unnerving expectations. Some report feeling a sense of unfairness, that there will be less patience for their mistakes than for white students' mistakes, and that their failure will be seen as evidence of an unalterable limitation rather than as the result of a bad day." How has this thinking been engender/proliferated, and by whom? Please explain.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Steele and Aronson, Stereotype Threat
Steele ans Aronson:
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Addressing the second part of the question first, I believe this sense of unfairness is engendered by fellow students, even teachers, and definitely the media. For example, schools often start ranking students as they reach middle school and high school level. As the article mentions, this can be very detrimental. When black students or Latinos find themselves ranked at the bottom, they get attached a number that depicts their intellectual value and this often feels permanent. If this trend continues from one year to another, the idea that blacks or Latinos have lower expectations gets entrenched. Students lose sight of the fact that their intellectuality is malleable. This idea has had increased proliferation through the media who often show news of graduation levels decreasing and violence rising in Oakland for blacks while the news tends to show high SAT scores for Asian Americans. It’s these trends that we see, hear, and even feel around us that have made us think the way we do. Nobody complains that we have blue, yellow, purple flowers. Color is part of their genes much like it is for us. Thus our society has arbitrarily created “inferior” people. Our goal shouldn’t be to recognize and reinforce stereotypes, but to recognize and assimilate stereotypes. What I mean by that is let those who are negatively stereotyped and positively stereotype should know that everyone is in the same boat when they start out—it’s hard work and having a sense of self-confidence that can set each of them apart.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that stereotype threat has the propensity to physically affect students. When students perform for standardized tests and do poorly, many times they find comfort in their stereotype and find their performance normal to the trend. Rather than convincing them to work harder, their scores tell them that they are on pace. I cannot firsthand say that negative stereotyping creates anxiety during tests but I do believe it may have a hand in how they interpret their scores once they get them back.
“In Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of African Americans”, Steele and Aronson critically examine the role that stereotypes play in individual lives and how such classifications, whether “real” or perceived can impair performance. Stereotype threat is the risk or possibility of performing in accord with and being evaluated by a harmful stereotype. Steele and Aronson conducted several studies to test the frequency and strength of stereotype threat on African American students. Their findings consistently confirmed that stereotype threat negatively affected African Americans’ test performance without any significant exception.
ReplyDeleteIn reflecting on possible explanations for this, could it be that the cumulative affect of experiences in school, home, the workplace, and society generally has somehow reinforced either directly/indirectly that African Americans don’t perform as well as or achieve at the same rate as whites? It’s possible this message was never conveyed outright or in any transparent and explicit way, but rather implied or disguised in some form.
It may also be that the African American student’s own life experience is that people “like them” or those who look like them have not been as successful as whites and they’ve unconsciously internalized this as fact and as a reflection of African American’s assumed potentiality or skillfulness and not as a historically oppressed and systematically exploited group.
Stereotype threat is a phenomena that arises when there are well-known, widespread stereotypes of a certain group. Members of that group begin to feel that anything they do, or anything about them, that conforms to that stereotype will either serve to enforce the stereotype in peoples’ eyes. In particular, one way this might manifest itself, as described in the quote above, is that when a member of a certain group does something conforming to a stereotype of that group, people tend to think that their action is a result of something inherent to that person, something inbred to their genetic makeup, something built-in, rather than perhaps just a quirk of that person. In this example, bad grades are attributed not to circumstances or error, but to something inherent to black college students; whereas for a white student the perception would be quite different.
ReplyDeleteIn large part, I find that such stereotypes are perpetuated through mass media. Shows, in particular comedic shows, which often major on getting laughs by making fun of different groups (ethnic, gender, or otherwise) and their differences, that is, by making fun of people in stereotypical fashion. While generally these characterizations are meant to be funny rather than harmful, these shows don’t simply reflect the reality around them, but they have a role in shaping it as well, reinforcing and proliferating stereotypes such as, for example, that certain ethnic groups don’t have the same intellectual capacity as others do.
Given the cultural climate, teachers indubitably have a role in perpetuating stereotype threat as well. Even the most liberated of teachers, if saturated in a culture that has such stereotypes, will inevitably treat students of different groups in different manner at one time or another…speaking a bit differently to the black student than she does the white student, reacting differently to their test scores, and causing, as a result, students of different groups to have according different self-perceptions.
I think stereotype threat does have the propensity to physically affect negatively stereotyped students. Stereotype threat is the anxiety a person has when there is a possibility of confirming a negative stereotype about people with their particular features. When the stereotype threat is activated, it, by nature, affects the person psychologically, as it causes anxiety within. This anxiety and concern manifests in ways that affect the person’s abilities and actions and in this way, it affects them psychosomatically. Many of our actions are motivated by our internal willpower, and thus if a person is very psychologically affected by a stereotype threat about their social group, this will affect what he or she does, whether or not they want to actively fight even more against the stereotype, or just let it predict their path.
ReplyDeleteIn the quote in the second question, those around the students as well as the students themselves have engendered this kind of thinking. As we have learned in this class, teachers tend to gravitate toward helping those who they believe will perform better, and neglect those who they believe will not respond regardless of any amount of attention received. In a case in which stereotype threat is prevalent, with black students and academics, the teachers may already have a preconceived notion of what to expect and thus grade accordingly. However, I think some of the blame falls on the students themselves as well. Some may use the stereotype threat as an excuse or reason for not trying their hardest, conceding that there’s no point in doing so if their work will just get graded and characterized by features of their social group.
I am in agreement with the posts from my fellow classmates above.
ReplyDeleteI think the stereotype threat is a silent one that everyone chooses to not talk about because it can become somewhat of a heated or controversial topic if words are not chosen wisely. But the stereotype threat is also a very deadly one as well. Studies like the ones presented to us in this article and other ones that we learn about when discussing issues revolving around race and test scores have shown that the way a person identifies themselves, affects testing performance. Those who identify as white male have proven to perform better than white females, and have proven to perform better than any male in any other ethnic group. The key here is the word "white," the stereotype attached to this category of peoples, though socially constructed, whiteness has played a huge role in society, bringing others up, while putting other minority groups down, even at a disadvantage sometimes. The words commonly associated with "white" is privilege, high performing, wealth and etc. The expectations for a white person, according to racial stereotypes are often higher than any other minority group. This stereotype, I believe adds to their overall confidence, a key factor when taking a test.
Teachers' expectations, even societal expectations are very important in any situation, but specifically in the case of test taking or classroom performance, what you expect is basically what you're going to get. As a teacher or other administrative member, if you're always looking out for somebody to do poorly or act out in class, that's bound to happen. Here, a teacher's expectations are met, but just in a negative way. Colorblindness, complete, true colorblindness I think is hard to achieve, but imprinting what you believe a person will act like according to the color of their skin and all the stereotypes attached to it is a crime in education. It is not fair for someone to basically paint someone's future without even giving the student a chance to prove themselves.
The stereotype threat puts children, our country's future, in danger of failing because of certain stereotypes that are attached to people of all different colors. This concerning issue goes beyond color though, it affects gender, sexual orientation, and creed as well. Stereotypes seem to surround us, but I hope that educators are strong enough to not succumb to what these stereotypes may lead them to think, but allow these students the opportunity to construct their path and those thoughts based on their actions if they were all held under the same expectation.
The saying, "be careful what you wish for," in a way connects to the stereotype threat. You should never wish a person ill or a person to perform poorly, so how is succumbing to the stereotype threat any different? By expecting a certain behavior or particular test score or attitude in a classroom or a child, you're going to get it because your expectations thus affect the way you talk, teach and interact with that particular student, and in a way, you are indirectly responsible for their failure if that is what you thought in the first place.
In retrospect, I saw this happen both negatively and positively in the classrooms that I grew up in and even now at SMDP when I volunteer. There are particular students that stand out to me because they are either always getting in trouble or they are they high-performers in class. Here it really isn't about racial stereotypes, but it may be more about the socioeconomic class their families come from or just based off of one incident that the teacher never forgets and thus expected that same sort of behavior from that student from then on.
I am also in agreement with all the posts above.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that stereotype threat can and do physically affect those that are negatively stereotyped. Without a doubt, those who are stereotyped are affected psychologically as it causes an anxiety from within. Since all of our actions are decided from within ourselves, the stereotype now has an influence on all the actions we decide to perform. Once this threat has settled within our minds, it starts to have an effect on the path we decide to follow and whether we decide to fight back against the negative stereotype or just stay on the path set forth for us.
Realistically, there is no way to avoid the negative stereotypes. These stereotypes are everywhere we look, as society has now created this "standard" that each race or gender is now judged upon. Young children, who used to be the most innocent of them all, are now starting to be affected by these stereotypes through mass media.
An example for myself was when I went to SDMP elementary. In a class I took about race before, we discussed how true colorblindness cannot exist. The closest to being truly colorblind are young children because most have not noticed the affect of stereotype threats. However, at SDMP, the children are far from colorblind. Mr. Harper tells all the volunteers to tell the kids that they are his cousin, and once I told this young girl in the 3rd grade that I was Mr. Harper's cousin, she did not believe. I know that it is obvious I am not his cousin, but I asked for a reason why she would not believe me and her answer was because I am brown and Mr. Harper is more black. I found this situation very interesting and tried to explain to her that skin color does not mean that I am not related to him. Overall, this could just be a case of a child's naive style or possibly a case where stereotype threat is starting to affect the younger generation.
Actually, Professor Nora said there will be reading questions for this week. However, I could find them, so I'll just answer this questions for this week's blog reading.
ReplyDeleteThe study done by Steele and Aronson clearly shows that the test scores of African American students were notably influenced by the negative stereotype. I as well believe the psychological stereotype threat can be transferred to physical effect on negatively stereotyped students. I assume that the physical effects are generally derived from the result of psychological effect such as prejudgment or discrimination based on the presumed student’s potential. Stereotype has strong correlation with potential theory which Rhona S. Weinstein proposes. In “Reaching Higher: The Power of Expectations” in Schooling, the expectations held for children can shape the structures and experiences that can limit human potential. In other words, negatively stereotyped students are more subjected to experiences that can limit their potential. Nonetheless, I also thought the degree of influence by the negative stereotype would be very diverse in accordance with student’s ability to deal with the negative stereotype. There could be a variety of variables that affects the student’s ability. For instance, the older students are, the lesser they get influenced by the negative stereotype. Stereotype is ultimately how the other people think about me before they get to know me. Thus, a student who has clear self-image would be less influenced by the negative stereotype. Also, stereotype is a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea. Therefore, if a physical state of a student is out of the oversimplified image, the stereotype also cannot affect the subject physically. In conclusion, there are obvious effects of negative stereotype on students, but it is diverse in accordance with the potential that each student has.