Could Stereotype Threat Be Part of the Pennsylvania School Curriculum?

By: Megan Birney

Educators at McCaskey East High School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania are trying something different to close the academic achievement gap between black and white students: They’re separating them.  For six minutes every day and 20 minutes every other week, students are segregated based on race and gender as part of the school’s new mentoring program.  This new policy was developed in the hopes that minority students’ academic performance will improve if they are provided with a positive role model within a group setting.

While educators at the school are clearly well intentioned, their policy of segregating students based on race and gender may do more harm than good.  First described by Steele and Aronson (1995), stereotype threat occurs when members of a negatively stereotyped group experience temporary cognitive deficits when confronted with a task where their performance could potentially support the negative stereotypes associated with their group.  For example, many African-American students have to contend with the stereotype that they are less intelligent than White students.  Similarly, women are often subjected to the stereotype that they are worse than their male counterparts at subjects related to math and science.  According to over 15 years of research on stereotype threat, simply mentioning to an African-American student that a test measures intelligence or asking a female student to indicate their gender on a math exam is enough to activate the threat, often leading to diminished performance.  Hence, making gender or race salient within an academic setting has the potential to widen the very achievement gaps that educators are attempting to close.

With this in mind, educators in Pennsylvania may want to re-think the way they separate their students.  While providing students with positive mentors is sure to promote self-confidence and encourage hard work, exposing them to stereotype threat may very likely have the opposite result.

 

Keller, J. (2007). Stereotype threat in classroom settings: The interactive effect of domain identification, task difficulty and stereotype threat on female students’ math performance. British       Journal of Educational Psychology, 77, 323-338.

McGlone, M.S., Pfiester, R.A., (2007). The Generality and consequence of stereotype threat. Sociology Compass, 1, 174-190.

Pennsylvania school experiments with ‘segregation.’ – CNN

 

 

Rising waistlines, falling grades?

By Erica Zaiser

The BBC reported on a recent survey by the British Heart Foundation which found that most parents in the UK vastly overestimate the amount of exercise their children are getting. While 72% of parents believe that their children are getting enough exercise, according to the survey, only one in ten children actually get the recommended amount of exercise per day.  As more children begin to suffer the ill effects of not exercising and because obesity in children is on the rise, there is added urgency to understand how weight impacts the lives of children.

A recent study by Clark, Slate, and Viglietti (2009), found that children who were severely overweight had significantly worse marks in all subjects than students who were not obese.  The same was seen with standardized test scores and was found even when controlling for economic status or student conduct. However, the results were only found among white students; weight was not significantly correlated with grades for students in other ethnic categories. The authors caution that much more research should be done as their sample was somewhat limited and that people should be careful of studies looking at weight categories because many children go through growth-spurts at different times. Furthermore, it is important to remember that their research only showed that weight and academic performance were correlated. It is impossible to say that obesity causes low grades when it could very well be the other way around or other factors may influence both grades and weight.

Regardless, the study is interesting because it highlights that the issue of obesity may be worrisome not just because of its ill effects on physical health. Children who are overweight might suffer from low self-esteem or become victims of bullying or social exclusion, all of which could impact their physical and mental health. There are still a number of questions that social psychologists could help answer: Why does obesity negatively correlate with academic success? Do teachers treat obese children differently than non-obese children? Or, are children who are suffering academically less likely to exercise and eat a proper diet?

Read more: David Clark, D., Slate, J. R., & Vigliett, G. C. (2009). Children’s Weight and Academic Performance in Elementary School: Cause for Concern?. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy. 9, 1, 185-204.