Comments on: Stereotype Threat in The School System

By: KristinK

KristinK — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 02:05:56 +0000

I agree with Lexie. I was also really surprised that the stronger students were the ones who suffered from stereotype threat. I also can’t imagine being told I wouldn’t do well on something because like Jordan my parents told me I would do well on the SAT’s (and other tests) because I was smart and I’d studied hard. I think that many people believe that black students in general don’t do as well in school as white students because of their socioeconomic status but clearly stereotype threat plays a role in the gap between white bad black student’s test scores.

By: Jordan

Jordan — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 22:57:46 +0000

This conversation about the Steele article also resignated with me. I actually started to feel a little guilty about all the positive motivation I had received from my parents prior to taking the SAT’s. They repeatedly told me things like, “You’re a smart girl, of course you’ll do better than most. It’s just a test, you’re good at tests.” I never thought that these kind of encouragements could give me such an advantage.

By: Lexie

Lexie — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 18:19:32 +0000

I was really interested to see that the stereotype threat affected people more when they were stronger students. I would have assumed that they would be confident in their skills and would feel like the exception to the rule. I now see that a student who is strong in his or her abilities will feel extra threat because of the threat of losing something he or she is strong in and endorsing a negative stereotype, especially when this individual has been trying to disprove the stereotype every day.