Initial Answer:
2. Discuss the role that the stereotype threat might play in the development of social identity.  What are some suggestions from Dr. Steele on how the stereotype threat might be combated?

Answer:

        Stereotype threat is when people feel at risk in dealing with the stereotypes surrounding their social groups. The racial differences among students academic performances arise because of stereotype threats. It also affects social identity development because of peoples beliefs that they are assigned tasks to measure their abilities. When people intend to improve their performance, they experience higher stereotype threats, especially if they have strong connections with stereotyped groups. Discrimination of peoples identification with negatively stereotyped groups also adversely affects the development of their social identities because repeated actions of discrimination as a stereotype threat promote diminished confidence, loss of interest in important areas, and poor performance (Akinyemi & Houtin 2019). Associating people with positive stereotypes promotes a stereotype boost which is the opposite of stereotype threat.

        Stereotype boosts peoples exposure to important elements regarding their social groups, promoting their effective performance. Dr. Steele made important suggestions on combating stereotype threats such as; appreciating the value of diversity, creating critical masses, creating fair learning tests to encourage all students better performances, enhance effective group-interactions and remove all the elements that generate worries about negative stereotypes among specific groups. Stereotype threats can also be avoided in learning institutions by providing equal personalized feedback to all employees regardless of their ethnicity, race, social class, and abilities.

5. Reflecting on your personal academic experience from grade school through high school, which material spoke to you/resonated the most and why?  Please use discretion if you choose to discuss personal problems (e.g. failing in school etc).

Answer:

      The best learning material across my academic experience is gender in schools and the concept of sex segregation. The information from the learning material was relatable to the experiences in many schools. According to the author of gender in schools and the concept of sex segregation, children are responsible for generating their genders in their schools. At the same time, adults also create gender by treating boys and girls differently or having particular sex beliefs.

Reference(s):

Akinyemi, A., & Houtin, L. (2019). The role of stereotype threat perception and subtle cues on stereotype threat effect. doi:10.31124/advance.9916667

Colleague’s Reply:
**I agree when you mentioned that stereotypes boost people’s exposure to see important elements regarding their social groups promoting their effective performance. I totally agree with that. I concur with you when you mentioned the Dr. Steele stated that stereotype threats can also be avoided in learning institutions by providing equal personalized feedback to all employees. Great Post!

**I too honed in on that last sentence,  “that stereotype threats can also be avoided in learning institutions by providing equal personalized feedback to all employees.” As a leader, it is so important to check and recheck that one treats people in the same manner.

**I too found the gender differences in the school setting particularly interesting because of my experience as a student and as a teacher. I can not count the times that other teachers have brought up that they had a challenging class and attributed it to having more boys than girls or saying that a boy’s behavior is acceptable because they are “just a wiggly boy”. I wholeheartedly believe that we perpetuate the gender differences in school starting at a very young age. I see this as a problem because when we do that we are treating them differently and by doing that we have different expectations of them that are out of their control.

**I think you did a nice job discussing stereotype threat. I think it’s easy to underestimate the power of social identities (in the words of the readings, academic self-concept). In particular, I appreciate the value of Dr. Steele’s contribution to the discussion, especially with respect to what we can do about it, particularly the role of small group interaction. One of the concepts that impressed me is what has been referred to in the readings as the jigsaw method (love teaching examples) and how using this method takes the pressure off, provides folks a way to provide key input, and makes students aware of how important it is to engage in cooperative/collaborative learning. As I read your response to your personal experience, I “flashed” on sex segregation which led me to wonder about fully sex-segregated schools, like all-women’s colleges and universities. A now deceased friend of mine was a Benedictine priest and Catholic college president who lamented the day the college went co-ed. I think his thinking reflected the times in which he served and probably overlooks the benefits of a diverse student population.

**I agree on the surface with your conclusion that stereotype threats can “also be avoided in learning institutions by providing equal personalized feedback to all employees regardless of their ethnicity, race, social class, and abilities”, because yes that should be the situation, but where this gets murky is how do you standardize feedback so you know that you are accomplishing this and at what level should this come? Not to get political, but whenever educational standards are coming from a federal level, they tend to be more exclusionary than their original intent because what works in one school system may not work in another and certainly not for the entire country, but if they come from too low a level, then a standardization may just be used to cement stereotype threats without an objective view on what is happening in a particular school system. Also, what would happen if in doing granular personalized feedback, at a macro level it turns out that one demographic is consistently being rated lower than another? That would require checks in place to ensure the system was indeed fair. Just throwing out some food for thought because the social psychology of the education system is one that could do with a lot of therapy 🙂

**The question: “what would happen if in doing granular personalized feedback, at a macro level it turns out that one demographic is consistently being rated lower than another?” is a really good question. It indeed is possible and has been seen before. Think about the GRE for instance, there is a bias that occurs with the GRE in which underrepresented minorities often have lower scores on average. We do not attribute this to race/ethnicity. Rather, we look to educational segregation and related neighborhood segregation, school quality, etc. as the root cause of the bias and inequality. Structural factors. We could add new things we have learned from social psychology such as stereotype threat. But, when one looks at the individual, we see a demographic consistently being rated lower. These are exactly the types of questions to ask.

** I appreciate that your response to question 2 called out the “providing equal personalized feedback to all employees” I am at a company now that aspires to do that. They collected feedback from all employees about the people they worked with over the last year. I wonder if it would be useful to identify any potential gender or racial stereotypes that arise from it. I know that a few of the female employees, including myself, were criticized on our communication abilities. A criticism I have unfortunately faced before being told when I am passionate about something, I talk overly emotional. At first I couldn’t believe this unprofessional behavior until I was talking to a psychologist friend of mine and she said that that is a sexist comment actually. Women are constantly told not to show so much emotion especially when speaking. This could be a good place to host a discussion to understand if it is communication ability or a gender condition that has been made as a flaw.