Assessment

Achievement Gap Alert: ‘Stereotype Threat’

By Kevin Bushweller — October 23, 2007 1 min read
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Education Week‘s Debra Viadero has written a fascinating piece about ‘stereotype threat,’ the tendency for students to underperform when faced with situations that might confirm negative stereotypes about their social group.

Since 1995, stereotype threat has been documented in more than 200 studies for many different situations and social groups, Ms. Viadero points out.

Have you seen this behavior manifesting itself in your schools? If yes, how so? And what should educators do to encourage kids to look beyond stereotypes?

A version of this news article first appeared in the Motivation Matters blog.