Ever since I first heard about Claude Steele’s research with college and high school students, I have thought about Stereotype Threat applying to students (Details in Whistling Vivaldi). But in his recent lecture, Steele called out a form of it that gets to the root of the adult choices that lead to neighborhood and school resegregation, and that I believe explains why it is so hard for well-intentioned white adults to work across difference to create equitable schools. Ironically, the more concerned a white person is about seeming racist, the more she will buffer herself from situations in which her conversation might make her seem to reinforce the stereotype.
Remember that there are three conditions that allow stereotype threat to take hold:
1) A negative stereotype exists about one of your identities
2) You are engaged in an activity in which you want to do well and beat the stereotype
3) You encounter a difficult, frustrating level of this activity
"What is the role of Stereotype Threat in interracial interactions?"
This was the animating question for Steele and his graduate students as they started out this phase of research. They devised a test using white males - a group for whom the stereotype “racist” could apply. Their pool was students at
Stanford University,where their preliminary research showed most students would not want to be labeled as racists. And they gave these students a task that would probably be more difficult than they were accustomed to - talking about racial profiling with two black strangers. They knew the students would likely be unused to such interactions because an earlier survey had shown that the average Stanford student has less than 1 friend of another race among their 6 closest friends.
In the experiment individual white male Stanford students were told that they would be discussing either the relatively innocuous topic, "Love and relationships" or the more charged "Racial profiling." The white subjects were then shown photos of two discussion partners. In one case, the discussion partners were also white men; in the other, they were both black men. The actual experiment came when the experimenter stood up, ostensibly to go and get the discussion partners. Before leaving the room he would say, "Would you do me a favor and arrange those three chairs for your group?"
Perhaps not surprisingly, white men who were told they would be chatting with other white men grouped the chairs closely together - not much difficulty expected here. The same applied when they thought they would be discussing Relationships with either white or black men - no stereotype would apply here. But if they thought they would be discussing racial profiling with blacks, all three conditions were met and they put their own chair farther away from the other two.
To check for the presence of the stereotype in the men’s minds, Steele and his group added a word-completion task that included words that could be completed with terms related to racial stereotyping or not, for instance, "Rac_ _ t" could be "Racist" or “Racket.” This came directly after the subjects were informed of their
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| "What we have here is a failure to communicate" |
partners and topics.Participants who expected to talk about profiling with black partners clearly had the white racist stereotype on the brain as they completed significantly more blanks with racism-related words. And, the number of stereotype related words was positively correlated with the distance at which they set their chair from the others - as in, the more I think about racism the less I want to blow it in this discussion. This fear of fulfilling the stereotype - just as with women and math tests, black students and high level verbal tests, and all the other cases - operates subconsciously.
This is, as Steele puts it, "a glum conclusion" for our country. No wonder we choose to live, shop, eat and worship with people who look like us. And no wonder so many white educators will, on a subconscious level, do anything to avoid working across difference, even though this is absolutely necessary in schools of today - let alone those of tomorrow! The fact is that there are many, many white educators in our country for whom the stereotype, the desperate need to break it, and the difficulty and frustration of doing so have presented themselves. This makes for a preponderance of teachers who are susceptible to this type of Stereotype Threat.
A Dweckian Antidote
So how do we get past that? The researchers - as have many professional developers - tried stating at the outset that they "valued multiple perspectives," or that participants "would not be judged" by their remarks. Neither of these techniques worked, and sometimes they even led to chairs being placed farther apart. But, really, why should people believe these things unless they have already experienced them over time and in community?
Next, Steele and his colleagues tried using the work of Stanford colleague Carol Dweck. They tried to invoke her Growth Mindset by telling participants:
1) That tension is natural in a discussion of racial profiling
2) That it is difficult for everyone, and
3) That participants should treat the conversation as a learning experience, both about racial profiling and about how to talk about charged subjects with people who might have different perspectives.
Voila! The white participants under this condition moved their chairs as close to black partners as to white partners. They were ready to work across difference. Steele and his group had created conditions wherein racially isolated whites could have the subconscious permission to enter into a difficult and potentially frustrating conversation with partners of another race. But, as the children and teachers of Reggio Emilia have been telling us for some time, these tangled and difficult learning conversations are necessary:
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| Tangled, Difficult, Necessary Conversation |
Next time I’ll explore more about how to use this breathtaking finding in coaching our white colleagues to become the allies they want to be.
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