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Stereotypes

Carolyn R. Fallahi, Ph. D.

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How can two children of different ethnicities have completely different

experiences?• Is it possible that they could still

experience the classroom differently, so differently that they affect their performance and achievement?

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Social Stereotypes

• Social stereotypes can influence: – intellectual functioning – identify development – Example of stereotypes:

• African Americans • Latinos• Women

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Social Stereotypes

• Sartre (1946, 1965) said that “first of all beings in a situation”… what he meant was that to understand people, you must inquire first about their environment.

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Achievement Motivation

• Good self-feelings = good achievement.

• Good achievement = sustained achievement motivation.

• What if this is screwed up?

• Problems within the environment?

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Negative stereotype

• Stereotype threat: a situational threat – a threat in the air – that can affect the members of any group about whom a negative stereotype exists.

• Examples.

• When a negative stereotype exists, it can affect achievement.

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Taking standardized tests

• Stereotype threat:– caused not by internal doubts about their

ability – but from their identification with the domain– and the resulting concern they have about

being stereotyped in it.

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Focus on altering the environment

• Does social structure and stereotypes shape the academic identities and performance outcomes?

• Examples: African Americans.

• The real story about standardized test scores.

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Women and education

• Women clearly thrive in many areas of schooling. – But problems in math, engineering, and the

physical sciences– Hyde, Fennema, and Lamon (1990) meta-

analysis.

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African American / White Women Inequities

• Why?

• Explanations range from socioculural to genetic.

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The rest of the reason

• Minority student achievement gaps persist even in the middle and upper SES classes.

• SAT example

• SES is not the entire explanation.

• overprediction or underperformance phenomeon of the test bias literature.

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Overprediction Study

• study with over 5,000 students at 4 prestigious northeastern colleges

• Underperformance occurred among women who were talented in math and science and who, took courses in these areas that were intended for majors; but dk occur when they took courses intended for nonmajors.

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Academic Identification

• This analysis assumes that sustained school achievement depends on identifying with school or forming a relationship between oneself and the domains of schooling such that one’s self-regard significantly depends on achievement in those domains.

• The role of extrinsic rewards.

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How is identification formed?

• Models.– First assumption … people need positive self-

regard.– identification depends on the self-evaluative

prospects it offers.– Are the rewards of this environment worth it?

Are there opportunities available? Do I have the skills?

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Threats to academic identification

• SES

• Cultural Patterns

• Stereotype Threat– Spotlight anxiety– Effects of long exposure to stereotypes

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Psychological disengagement

• Psychological disengagement is a defensive detachment of self-esteem where self-esteem is not contingent upon one’s success or failures in that domain. In this case, the domain we speak of is academia.

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Psychological disengagement

• Steele (1997) has suggested that minorities may disidentify with or chronically disengage from academia as a way of escaping the anxiety that results from performing under the weight of cultural stereotypes of inferiority.

• Osborne (1995)

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Psychological disengagement – the process

• Major & Schmader (1998)– Devaluing– Discounting

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Ethnic Differences in Devaluing

• This is a popular theory – a theory that says that there are ethnic differences in academic performance which translate into ethnic differences in the value placed on academic success.

• little evidence

• Ethnic differences apparent

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Schmader, Major & Gramzow

• In a study by Schmader, Major & Gramzow (2001) that looked at devaluing and discounting. The following results were found.

• European Americans

• African Americans

• Latinos

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Schmader, Major, & Gramzow

• This relationship is consistent with Ogbu’s (1991) hypothesis of cultural inversion