Stereotype Threat

Stereotype threat refers to the risk of confirming negative stereotypes about an individual鈥檚 racial, ethnic, gender, or cultural group which can create high cognitive load and reduce academic focus and performance. The term was coined by the researchers Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson. Steele notes that 鈥減ersistence in an endeavor is sustained by a faith that one will be viewed as an individual and be included in important relationships. Negative stereotypes erode this trust, and thus reduce the likelihood of scholastic success.鈥� When students are uncertain about whether they belong in the classroom, they are watching for cues in the environment that signal whether or not they are welcome there, and may also be concerned about confirming a negative stereotype about their group. This hyper-vigilance and extra stress uses up cognitive resources that are essential for learning, which can affect their performance and discourage them from building valuable relationships.

Students who are confident they belong in a learning community and feel valued by their teachers and peers are able to engage more fully in the classroom. With that sense of belonging, they are more likely to participate fully in discussion, build important relationships, be open to feedback and are more likely to persevere in the face of difficulty.

In order to confront the issue of stereotype threat in the classroom, we must educate ourselves on our own implicit biases, embedded attitudes or stereotypes we have towards various groups of people. The Harvard (IAT) measures attitudes and beliefs that people may be unwilling or unable to acknowledge on a conscious level. The IAT measures an individual鈥檚 personal associations with respect to concepts such as race or gender.聽

Reflecting upon the assumptions that we make as instructors, often due to implicit bias,聽is a challenging task, because so many of our assumptions seem like 鈥渃ommon sense.鈥澛燗s Stephen Brookfield writes, 鈥渨e have to investigate where our common sense assumptions come from. Many are in the air of the professional culture we鈥檝e grown up in, accepted uncritically because colleagues, textbooks, and experts have told us this is how teaching works.鈥澛燛xamining our assumptions helps shed light on what we think we know about our students and their ability to learn in our classroom spaces.

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