The next UCSF Science Education Journal Club will take place next week on Thursday March 26th from 9 to 10am at Mission Bay, Genentech Hall Room S-271.
This monthly journal club is organized jointly by two UCSF programs: the Science & Health Education Partnership (SEP) and the Office of Career and Professional Development (OCPD).
This month, the Journal Club will be discussing:
Am Psychol., 1997 Jun;52(6):613-29.
A threat in the air. How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and performance.
Abstract
A general theory of domain identification is used to describe achievement barriers still faced by women in advanced quantitative areas and by African Americans in school. The theory assumes that sustained school success requires identification with school and its subdomains; that societal pressures on these groups (e.g., economic disadvantage, gender roles) can frustrate this identification; and that in school domains where these groups are negatively stereotyped, those who have become domain identified face the further barrier of stereotype threat, the threat that others' judgments or their own actions will negatively stereotype them in the domain. Research shows that this threat dramatically depresses the standardized test performance of women and African Americans who are in the academic vanguard of their groups (offering a new interpretation of group differences in standardized test performance), that it causes disidentification with school, and that practices that reduce this threat can reduce these negative effects.
The paper and an article the author wrote for The Atlantic based on his research are attached. If you don’t have time to read the (long-ish) research paper, but are interested in the topic and would like to join the discussion at the journal club, we encourage you to read the magazine article instead.
Here are some of the discussion questions to reflect on in preparation for the next Science Education Journal Club:
- What are your overall thoughts of Steele’s research and his interpretation of the results?
- Which of the experiments’ results did you find most surprising or intriguing? Why?
- In the “Wise Schooling: Practice and Policy”, Steele brings up the issue of “rendering onto the right students the right intervention”. What considerations does this have for your own (current or future) teaching?
Thin Ice Stereotype Threat and Black College Students - Magazine - The Atlantic.pdf