Saturday, November 13, 2010

When Negative Gender Stereotypes Hang Heavy in the Classroom, Girls Learn Less

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/choke/201008/when-negative-gender-stereotypes-hang-heavy-in-the-classroom-girls-learn-less

I don't recall anyone being assigned to make a blog post last class, and since no one is posting I figured I'd put up a post.

In this article, social psychologists discovered that when girls are in a learning environment in which they are being reminded of negative gender stereotypes, they will end up learning less. The way they studied whether negative stereotypes would hinder a woman's learning was by having a group of woman perform a certain visual perception task. Before doing the task, some of the women in the group were reminded of various stereotypes about women being bad at math and visual processing abilities while women were told nothing at all at the beginning of the task. Surely enough, the woman that had been reminded of the stereotypes ended up performing poorly on the task in comparision to the woman that had been told nothing at the beginning of the task. When looking into these stereotypes in younger children in schools, the psychologists looked into who was perpetuating these stereotypes, and they had come to realize that in many situations it was the female teachers themselves that enforced these stereotypes, thus leading these young girls to perform poorly in subjects like math.
This study can be applied to any group of persons that have been negatively stereotyped, and this makes me wonder about our school systems and how they alone can have such a great impact on our futures and whether or not they succeed. Would the enforcement of positive thought from a young age in our school systems be enough to help so many more children succeed who have been previously left in the dust due to negative stereotypes? What are your thoughts?

19 comments:

  1. I think this article brings up an interesting point that is rarely made in classrooms. There is so much focus put on putting racial discrimination/prejudice to rest, as well as cultural-related projects - and rightly so. However, I don't think I can recall any classroom exercises that I completed during my education that related to gender in an ideological sense, meaning, that wasn't "sex talk" related. Yes, we learned about famous "strong" women such as Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks, and Helen Keller, but this was always approached historically, and never cumulatively. I think schools could benefit from an exercise such as this in order to put false assumptions to rest, in accordance with Allport's Contact Hypothesis, and I'm curious as to why this is not already mandatory. I feel as if America has a very puritanical attitude towards anything that is slightly related to sexuality, but there must be a distinction made for gender since it is deeply tied to identity, and therefore is generally tied to underlying stereotypes.

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  2. I agree with Rebecca that sexism seems to be the less-acknowledged form of prejudice, but on the other hand, almost every time I've learned about stereotype threat it's been exemplified by girls being bad at math. In fact, the idea that women can't do math is so pervasive that researchers don't even have to introduce the idea: in another study about stereotype threat, women who had received no priming at all still performed worse than men, while women who were told that both genders were equally adept at the type of math problems they were solving improved their scores to equal those of the men. These results also suggest that self-fulfilling prophecies can be used to counteract prejudice: if the teacher believes that students of various races and genders will do equally well on assignments, and tells the students so, the performance gap caused by prejudice may lessen.

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  3. What I found most interesting in this article is the fact that female teachers are helping to perpetuate this stereotype that girls are not good at doing math. I wonder if the study was done with male students to see if their reading worsened after hearing that girls are better at it. Are female students more susceptible to negative stereotype threats? In this article about gender stereotypes and stereotype threats men seemed more susceptible to the threats than women. Men and women were given tests that stated that the opposite sex would outscore them. Observing the tests that had this statement with those that did not showed that there was no increase in women's test scores but men scored higher. This proves that men are more sensitive to this treat. Here is the url to the article: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCR/is_3_40/ai_n16726403/pg_2/?tag=content;col1

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  4. I would like to see what the outcome would have been if the teacher was male, and didn't have the background of thinking that girls are worse at math than boys. This study reminded me of the Blues Eyes, Brown Eyes study, when the children were asked to practice their multiplication tables and the children that were discriminated against did poorly. I think this article also shows a lot about conformity. These women conformed to the idea that they were worse at math and visual perception than men. The blue-eyed children conformed to the idea that they were worse at multiplication. That study done when people pick out the shortest line in a group, but everyone else is picking the wrong line. All of these studies show that, in general, people conform to what is expected of them. So, in a perfect world, if a teacher made it clear that everyone should do well in math, maybe everyone would do a bit better and live up to their personal potential.

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  6. I agree with Katelin's saying that "people conform to what is expected of them". As the study in the article shows, the negative stereotype, "girls can't do math", worsens women's performances on math by making them think that they are not supposed to solve the math problems well, or they don't have to do well because they are women. They will not perform their best, and simply will become to believe that the stereotype is true. This is so bad because people would give up their math abilities before trying hard and realizing that whether they are truly good at it or not. Therefore, I believe it is very important to reduce negative stereotypes and tell only positive things to kids to discover their true abilities.

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  7. This article is really interesting it made me think about the different stereotypes, which are given to male and females. I wonder what would have happen if the teacher was male and he had told the girls that the stereotype wasn’t true, would the math skills of girls improve? Also I would like to see an experiment, which focused on the stereotype of women stay at home, clean and cook while men go to work and play sports. If children from a young age were told different would this change the gender roles of women and men? Overall I feel that positive stereotypes and positive encouragement can have big impact on how a person performs. People work harder when they have been praised and told that they are good at a certain task. Therefore, yes Lyla I think that having positive encouragement in our school systems could improve how many children succeed in their education.

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  8. This article reminds me of a previous post we had to reply to, one in which elderly participants in a study were reminded of certain age stereotypes which caused them to do poorly in comparison with subjects who were not told anything. It is easy to see the power of words in affecting people's confidence in themselves, but in this case it is also apparent how detrimental gender stereotypes can be when it can affect the rest of a student's academic career. It is especially surprising that the article said that the stereotypes often come from female teachers, and while I'm sure they don't mean to hurt the chances of their female student's learning math and science, the problem should be stopped at the source so that girls have the same opportunities to learn as their male counterparts. This brings up a question, however, if it is often said that boys are not as good at reading and writing as girls, does the reinforcement of those negative stereotypes affect boys? I would be interested to find out if it were true.

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  9. It is also noteworthy to relate this article to another example of stereotype threat from our textbook. Like this study, women experienced a stereotype threat on their academic performance. However, instead of being reminded of the stereotypes that women were bad at math, the women wore a sweater or swimsuit while taking an exam. The women performed much lower than the men when wearing a swimsuit. This proved the researcher's hypothesis that women are raised to feel more insecure about their bodies than men (Kassin, Fein, and Markus 170). It is sad that many women will feel degraded by their stereotype and therefore sabotage their own performance (otherwise known as the "choking" effect). Schools need to implement ways that prevent choking and provide positive lessons about gender equality. Kassin, Fein, and Markus explain a few ways to reduce stereotype threat: reminding yourself of what makes you feel good about yourself, using humor, associating the threat to something nonthreatening, etc (171).

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  10. I was surprised when I started reading this article because I had never heard of this specific gender stereotype before. I wonder if Its because my female teachers were confident in their math skills and/or had not been exposed to this stereotype threat. From my experiences in high school math courses for an example, there were always equal amount of smart boys and smart girls in the classes. It would be interesting if a study was conducted with the stereotype threat being reverted. What if the half of the college-age females were told that females were better than males at math before the test? Would the actual stereotype threat still take effect (boys better at math than girls) because of its widely known acceptance or would conformity play the major part? If conformity took part, it would mean that the female students are just conforming to/acting upon what the testers are telling them is valid. They don't want to go against this 'truth' (not conform) so they believe the stereotype threat and do well on the test.

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  11. It is pretty odd that people pay so much attention to racial stereotypes but lately seem to have forgotten gender related ones. I think this has happened because everyone wants to believe that the issue of gender stereotyping and discrimination was taken care of decades ago. Exercises having to do with race are far more common than those having to do with gender because no one wants to think that the gender issue even exists now. Racial discrimination is part of too recent a history--and in some places still a part of reality--to be forgotten quite yet. I think that having overcome segregation seemingly so long ago, people in the U.S. think that we now live in a modern world--a world in which something as archaic as gender discrimination could not possibly exist.

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  12. I agree with Judy that the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy is being used negatively here. I've noticed this tendency at Pratt, specifically in my required science courses. The professors will sometimes give a disclaimer to the class in the beginning of a semester like, "I know no one here is a science major," etc, etc, essentially saying they don't expect that much. I bet it definitely influences the quality of work in those classes because students always have that excuse in the back of their minds when doing work for those classes.

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  13. So many people here make such interesting points. For instance, Katelin stated "People conform to what is expected of them." I think this is typically true. Although I did hear this stereotype of females being worse at math in high school, I never really gave it much thought, because it was never pounded into my brain. If these girls were reminded of lower expectations, I can only imagine their subconscious is telling them the same repetitious mantra. This gender stereotyping happens in many more situations as well. For example, when deciding for whom to vote, some decide not to vote for the female candidate because of a stereotypical shortcoming, such as a lack of skill for foreign affairs, etc. (http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3088412.pdf) This article proves that these gender stereotypes are alive and, while they may not be as strong as, say, 50 years ago, they are none the less present. So while some girls hear that they are naturally worse at math, female candidates are not as well versed in foreign affairs and they should go for something else, I say we need to break down these barriers so people do not simply conform and perform to their lowest expected ability.

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  14. First off, teachers that support the stereotype are influencing all her female students, which is very counter productive. It seems like an indirect form of brainwashing. I don't even think these teachers know they are doing it necessarily, it's just a stereotype they have been brought up around. Fortunately, it greatly affected the women taking the test. The women in this study listened to the stereotypes and it had a great impact on their performance. It made them feel lower than men in terms of math. It seems like they are conforming, in a sense, to this stereotype. I agree with Dana and Amber that it would be interesting to see the study done with men telling females the stereotype was false and seeing if they performed better or if mens reading worsened after telling them that females are better at it. It would be really interesting if girls in this class took the test, after reading this article and being aware of the how strongly the stereotype affected the women, and how women who were not told negative things prior to the test did really well. When something negative is planted in your head, you begin to think negatively and that affects the outcome of tasks.

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  15. Its interesting to see through these articles the many different ways in which stereotype threat can manifest itself, and how powerful it is when it does, whether its concerning a negative stereotype about the elderly or one about women and poor math skills. Its quite alarming to see how affected our performances and behavior can be by the constant stream of stereotype reinforcement that surrounds us. Its disturbing to think how these stereotypes can affect the behavior of groups on a larger scale, and how they can be preventing us from performing at our true potential. If a few women can be affected in a one-time situation by simply being reminded of a stereotype about them, what are the effects of being constantly reminded as a society of negative stereotypes every day over a period of several decades or centuries?

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  16. I thought of a similar example to Matt in relativity to this article. A lot of my academic classes at Pratt have been prompted by the professors not to be taken seriously because they don't expect to be taken seriously, thus they encourage very little of the students. This is a way in which the professors are stereotyping their students as being "art students", solely interested in studio courses or courses relating to their major. This has always bothered me; I can be stimulated by any topic but find myself often discouraged by these types of teachers who immediately require less of me than I am capable of.These self fulfilling stereotypes are everywhere, we create them all the time for ourselves without even realizing it. The ways in which we set ourselves up to fail only to justify the failure itself are very common, especially for college students. The study conducted in this article is just one way of illustrating that type of socially induced failure. The study conducted with women and math tests would most likely not show identical patterns with men, considering the cultural background of male and female intelligence stereotypes. However, men would not be exempt from the same phenomenon of self defeating prophecy and self prescribed failure with the discouraging stereotypes applied to them.

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  17. I really do believe that people conform to what is expected of them and conform to different situations they are in. I thought the article was very interesting and insightful in the sense that stereotypes can be very powerful. I have never really given much thought to the stereotype of girl doing worse in math in high school. I almost feel that when this idea is instilled in these girls brains, they start to believe that this stereotype is actually true, and begin behaving accordingly. I see this happening all of the time. During liberal arts classes, professors at Pratt express that we should only focus on our studio classes for our major because that is "why we are here." This in turn affects the students and makes them seem like required liberal arts classes are not that big of a deal, and definitely influences the quality of the work for the class. I feel as though people work harder when they are praised and told they are doing a good job. This boosts one's confidence and reaffirms what they are doing.

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  18. This is a very common stereotype that we heard all the time, but back in my high school whole bunch really good math teachers and other science teachers are female, which probably reduce the effect of anxiousness of teacher about her own math ability. So like Nicole’s experience, there were always equal amount of male and female perform fairly well in the classes. What Matt said about the science class is totally true, that kind of statement made me feel less enthusiastic about what we are going to learn from the class, then ended up putting a lot less effort in to that class compare to the studio classes.

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  19. It is often true that repeatedly calling out stereotypes and reminding someone of a particular stereotype that fits them will make them more likely to fall into believing it. I agree with Jaime that these gender stereotyping issues are definitely relevant. Much like I learned from taking the IAT, my prejudices against certain stereotypes are likely a result of what I have heard my entire life about the gay community even though I am a part of it. I could see this article on girls in the classroom being used as an argument for private schooling or segregating women off to let them learn without the negative stereotypes they might face from men. However how will they then function in the real world where they must interact with both men and women in a work setting? Is it best to shelter them? I believe that through techniques we discussed that can be used to reduce prejudice (such as reminders of positive figures that fit those stereotypes) or even the contact hypothesis theory could all be used to overcome this problem girls face in the classroom. A strong and intelligent female role model could even take the shape of a female teacher.

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