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| Credit: NPR |
I thought about this report, listening to it on NPR as I drove to work. It speaks of stereotype threat as a gender-bias issue only, but it tends to go (as far as gender):
1. I see less women in STEM careers;
2. I receive no support as far as STEM career ambitions;
3. I am steered into other non-STEM careers;
4. Due to a lack of representation, I don't feel I "fit" in this STEM career, and tend in time to "drop out."
5. I will gravitate towards career choices where there's a more representative number of myself, and therefore comfort in relating to other professionals within said career.
As the article alludes, it applies to any "outside" groups. It explains why (to me), there are fewer minorities in STEM careers as well, why we tend to gravitate to support structures like NSBP, NSHP, NSBE, NABA et al if in the fields at all, or ubiquitously, sports and rap music. Reminds me at my high school, my so-called guidance counselor didn't encourage me to major in Engineering Mathematics (I changed after my freshman year to Engineering Physics). I enjoyed visiting North Forsyth High School in my junior year ('83), telling her I was a year away from obtaining my degree. Some less evolved of us tend to exist as the gatekeepers of what is "proper." They are sadlymistaken.
"Living well is the best revenge." George Herbert, English clergyman & metaphysical poet (1593 - 1633).
When there's a stereotype in the air and people are worried they might confirm the stereotype by performing poorly, their fears can inadvertently make the stereotype become self-fulfilling.
Steele and his colleagues found that when women were reminded — even subtly — of the stereotype that men were better than women at math, the performance of women in math tests measurably declined. Since the reduction in performance came about because women were threatened by the stereotype, the psychologists called the phenomenon "stereotype threat."
Stereotype threat isn't limited to women or ethnic minorities, Steele wrote elsewhere. "Everyone experiences stereotype threat. We are all members of some group about which negative stereotypes exist, from white males and Methodists to women and the elderly. And in a situation where one of those stereotypes applies — a man talking to women about pay equity, for example, or an aging faculty member trying to remember a number sequence in the middle of a lecture — we know that we may be judged by it."
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