Download - 1 Stepping up to a nontraditional challenge
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www.ctetrailblazers.org
Stepping up to a
nontraditional challenge
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UnderstandingNontraditional Occupations
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WHAT ARE NTO’S?
A nontraditional occupation is one in which25% or less of a certain gender is represented.
NTO’s for Women NTO’s for Men
Court Reporters
Dental Hygienists
Insurance Appraisers
Elementary/Middle School
Teachers
Nuclear Medicine Technicians
Physical Therapists
Veterinary Techs
Waiters
Aerospace Engineers
Air Traffic Controllers
Cartographers
Dentists
Foresters
Funeral Directors
Optometrists
Urban and Regional Planners
WHAT ARE STEREOTYPES?
Defusing the power of negative stereotypes
What are stereotypes?
Breaking the Barrier of Stereotyping
Cultural and Social Stereotypes:How we simplify the world
•A stereotype is a “conventional, formulaic, or oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.”
•We all use stereotypes to help us understand the world and make it simpler.
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What are stereotypes?
Identity Salience: conceived self as belonging to any one of
numerous social categories (female, Irish American, child,
etc.)is developed by age 6.
The awareness of cultural stereotypes increases
dramatically between the ages of 6 and 11.
Stereotypical Career Expectations are developed
during this phase.
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Social and Cultural Stereotypes Take Hold
What are stereotypes?
Start Overcoming Stereotypes Early
• Stereotypes can affect career choices early in schooling
• Anxiety about stereotypes have been shown to undermine sense of belonging for girls in math as early as middle school
• Girls’ confidence in and liking of mathematics begins to wane in middle school
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What are stereotypes?
By understanding the beliefs that give rise
to negative stereotypes, we can begin to
reduce the differences that persist in
academic performance across ethnic and
gender groups.
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Understanding and Remediating Stereotype Threat
Research on understanding and remediating ethnic and gender gaps in education
Unintended Signals of Discouragement
Implicit Bias
Stereotype Threat
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Understanding and Remediating Stereotype Threat
Recognizing Our OwnUnintended Signals of Discouragement
How to Avoid Them
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Unintended Signals of Discouragement
We maythink we know
what we believe and value,but
Self-Perception can be deceptive.
Our true beliefs and valuesare secreted away to a subconscious level.
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Unintended Signals of Discouragement
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Understanding Self-Perception
What are stereotypes?
What do you believe?
•How have your experiences influenced
who you believe you should be?
•Understanding what we truly believe is
an important first step toward
overcoming barriers that block us from
achieving a goal.
•Do your beliefs align with your actions?
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Are you aware of the messages you are sending to others?
Unintended Signals of Discouragement
“Unintended Signal of Discouragement”
President of Harvard University Lawrence “Larry” Summers,
Resigned 2/21/2006One year after his 01/14/2005
remarks
Speaking at the NBER Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce, Dr. Summers questioned the “intrinsic aptitude” of women and suggested that they might be under represented in STEM fields because of:
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1. Their relatively lower interest in high powered jobs that required massive professional commitment; and
2. Their innate difference in abilities.
Unintended Signals of Discouragement
Subconscious Beliefs Surface
•Throughout his career, Larry Summers has
been an advocate for educating girls’ for
careers in the economic and financial world.
•However, he consistently makes statements
that suggest he believes otherwise: girls are
"socialized toward nursing" while boys are
"socialized toward building bridges.”
•His mistake was not understanding that he
subconsciously held these stereotypes to be
true.
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Unintended Signals of Discouragement
Becoming Aware of Our Implicit Biases
Recognizing Our Subconscious Beliefs
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Implicit Bias
Implicit Biases
Thoughts that people may be unwilling to expressand
may not even know they have
“Individuals may have unconscious biases involving gender or race or religion that are quite different from their stated
beliefs.”Fred Smyth, UVA
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Powerful Effect on Gender Equityin Science and Mathematics
Engagement and Performance
Implicit Bias
Implicit Association Test(IAT)
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/
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Implicit Bias
Understanding theStereotype Threat
Phenomena
How are individuals affected
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Understanding and Remediating Stereotype Threat
Stereotype Threat
is the fear that one's behavior will confirm an
existing stereotype of a group with which one
identifies 20
Dr. Joshua Aronson,Professor of Applied
Psychology
Dr. Claude Steele,Professor of Psychology
1995 New York University, SteinhardtSchool of Culture, Education & Human
DevelopmentResearch on gender “gaps” in
educational achievement and standardized test performance
Understanding and Remediating Stereotype Threat
Individuals being targeted by well-knowncultural stereotypes can feel very threatened.
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Stereotype Threat
triggers a number of
psychological and physiological responses,
many of which interfere with
intellectual performance and academic motivation.
Understanding and Remediating Stereotype Threat
Experimentsmake
you think
A test was presented under two conditions:1. The control condition: the test was presented as these tests are always presented - as a measure of intellectual ability and preparation.2. The experimental condition: the test was presented in a non-evaluative way. The test takers were told that the researchers were not interested in measuring their ability with the test but that they just wanted to use the test to examine the psychology of verbal problem solving.
Results:1. In the control condition, the African American test takers, on average, scored much lower than the white test takers2. For the white test takers there was no difference in their scores between the control condition and the experimental condition.3. For the African American test takers there was a big difference between the control condition and the experimental condition. They solved about twice as many problems on the test in the experimental condition. Moreover, there was no difference between the performance of the black test takers and the white test takers.
Steele and Aronson (1995)22
Understanding and Remediating Stereotype Threat
Research shows that confronting negative stereotypes can lead to:
1. Anxiety
2. Dejection
3. Reduced self-control
4. Reduced working memory
5. Reduced creativity, flexibility, and speed
These changes are physiological and can be measured.
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Understanding and Remediating Stereotype Threat
How do individuals affected by stereotype threat behave?
•Avoiding tasks
•Devaluing the task to protect self from consequences of failure
•Distancing themselves from group in order not to be associated with stereotype
•Changing career aspirations
•Negative stereotyping tendsto increase behaviors associated with the stereotype
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Understanding and Remediating Stereotype Threat
Changing the Message
Taking Action
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1. Understand our Implicit Bias
2. Reframe the task and modify course materials by removing situational cues
3. Provide experiences and role models to help students see alternatives to the stereotype
4. Attribute struggles to external, temporary causes. Foster a belief that intelligence is malleable
How can you reduce stereotype threat?
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Changing the Message
Step 1. Understand Our Implicit Biases
“Our preferences for racial, ethnic, and other groups may be unconscious”.
• Implicit bias can influence behaviors,
often with “unintended signals of discouragement.”
• The first step in changing our attitude is awareness.
• Consciously planned actions can compensate for
known, unconscious preferences and beliefs.
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Changing the Message
Step 2. Reframe tasks and modify course materials by removing situational cues
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Changing the Message
• Hang a picture of Danica McKellar along side a picture of Einstein
• Display Counter Stereotype Posters
• Replace stereotype reinforcing literature with neutral literature
• Provide Role Model Mentors
• Talk about the inaccuracy of the stereotype
Neil deGrasse Tyson, Frederick P. Rose Director,Hayden
Planetarium,American Museum of Natural History
Step 3. Provide experiences and role models to help students see alternatives to the
stereotype
Role Models and Mentors:
Alleviate performance worries
Influence our attitudes and words
1. Establishing a view or vision that contradicts the
common view
2. Supporting positive social change
3. Encouraging acceptance of alternative attributes
4. Empowering individuals to succeed
5. Respecting individualsCreate a Counter Stereotype
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Changing the Message
Step 4. Attribute struggles to external, temporary causes. Foster the belief that IQ is malleable.
Students who were encouraged to view intelligence as
malleable, "like a muscle" that can grow with work and
effort, were more likely to indicate greater enjoyment and
valuing of education, and they received higher grades.
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Changing the Message
Reducing the Impact of Stereotype Threat
Remember these hints
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1. Be positive.
Reminding students
of achieved
positive identities . . .
may be sufficient to
subdue stereotype
threat.
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Reducing the Impact of Stereotype Threat
2. Be Stigma Conscious.
Positive stereotypes
produce benefits for
stereotype-associated
group members when
they are subtly, not
blatantly, highlighted.
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Reducing the Impact of Stereotype Threat
3. Be aware.
Performance is
better or equivalent
when stereotype
threat is not
emphasized.
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Reducing the Impact of Stereotype Threat
4. Be alert.
Any group can
show evidence of
underperformance
when the situation
brings attention
to the negative
stereotype.
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Reducing the Impact of Stereotype Threat
5. Be sensitive.
Students who value
and care about doing
well in the stereotyped
domain are hurt most
by negative
stereotyping.
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Reducing the Impact of Stereotype Threat
6. Be a coach.
Intelligence is like a
muscle, malleable
and not fixed; it can
be improved with
practice.
Students need to
know this and focus
on “effort” not
“talent.”
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Reducing the Impact of Stereotype Threat
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Breaking Barriers
• Develop support programs for nontraditional students
• Place pairs of nontraditional students together in one course or job site
• Encourage students to stay in the class or job for a few weeks
• Provide formal opportunities to meet and share problems or concerns
• Provide students with positive reinforcement
• Establish and maintain a mentoring program
http://reducingstereotypethreat.org/
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ReferencesKrendl, Richeson, Kelley, & Heatherton, 2008
www.reducingstereotypethreat.org/mechanisms.html
Quinn & Spencer, 2001www.reducingstereotypethreat.org/bibliography_quinn_spencer.html
Spencer, Steele, and Quinn, 1999 www.reducingstereotypethreat.org/bibliography_spencer_steele_quinn.html
Steele & Aronson, 1995www.reducingstereotypethreat.org/bibliography_steele_aronson.html
Reducing Stereotype Threatwww.reducingstereotypethreat.org/reduce.html
Math Scores Show No Gap for Girlshttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/education/25math.html
Ben-Zeev, Fein, and Inzlict (2005). Arousal and stereotype threat. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Volume 41, Issue 2, March 2005, Pages 174-181.
Johns, Schmader, and Martens (2005). Knowing is half the battle. Psychological Science
Volume 16 Issue 3 Page 175-179, March 2005.
McIntyre (2005). A social impact trend in the effects of role models on alleviating women’s mathematics stereotype threat. CRISP, February 2005,v 10 n 9.
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