![\"\"](\"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/AdobeStock_171288105_Credit.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nCould an exercise that simple make a difference in school? Could it help especially vulnerable students?<\/p>\n
This idea sounds too good to be true, but it has increasing support behind it. The most recent news comes from Great Britain…<\/p>\n
The Background: Stereotype Threat<\/h2>\n
Back in the 1990s, Claude Steele and other researchers found that stereotypes led to a complex, counter-intuitive thought process.*<\/p>\n
The short version goes like this: students who know they might be stereotyped often want to disprove<\/em> those stereotypes. Paradoxically, their efforts to do so lead them to adopt counter-productive strategies.<\/p>\n As a result, they do less well than they otherwise might have done — and (tragically) reconfirm to themselves the stereotypes they’ve been trying to defeat.<\/p>\n Steele dubbed this process stereotype threat<\/strong>.**<\/p>\n As researchers explored this phenomenon, they quickly got to work trying to figure out solutions.<\/p>\n Happily, we’ve got lots of strategies to combat stereotype threat.<\/p>\n It turns out that growth mindset<\/em> interventions have a big effect. For instance, this study<\/a> by Walton & Cohen still amazes me.<\/p>\n A less well-known approach follows this chain of logic:<\/p>\n If students in my class feel a valued and welcomed member of it, they’ll have less cause to worry about potential stereotypes in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n If that’s true, then anything I can do to promote a feeling of belonging should reduce ST.<\/p>\n What, then, might I do?<\/p>\n Several researchers in the US have tried a simple writing strategy. Students have the opportunity to write about their values system<\/em>.<\/p>\n In theory, this writing should make them feel more welcome, should reduce the salience of stereotypes, should thereby let more learning happen. (Of course, the theory is more complex, but that’s the gist of it.)<\/p>\n The approach is called\u00a0values affirmation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Values affirmation has been tested as an anti-stereotype-threat strategy in the US, and has had good results.\u00a0 (For instance, here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Would it work elsewhere?<\/p>\nSolutions: “Values Affirmation”<\/h2>\n
Exporting Solutions to Great Britain<\/h2>\n