The purpose of this paper was to examine mindset research from a sociocultural perspective, analyze the interrelation between mindset and social representations, and expand mindset discourse from intelligence and giftedness to the creativity domain with maker-pedagogy. Although mindset research has traditionally been anchored in personality psychology, the present paper argues that mindsets reflect social and cultural practices of schooling and associated cultural beliefs and social identities. Experienced societal and educational realities shape implicit ability beliefs and reflect social representations shared by families, teachers, and peers. Because the rapidly transforming knowledge society requires all citizens to solve non-routine problems and pursue novelty and innovation, it is critical that young people believe in their potential to stretch their intellectual and creative capabilities and build new talents through sustained efforts. Hence, deliberate cultivation of a growth mindset is not only beneficial for young people's educational and professional trajectories but also a societal necessity.
This study examined Finnish eighth graders’ (N = 1136) educational aspirations and how those can be predicted by mindsets, academic achievement, and gender. Multinomial logistic regression analyses were conducted to investigate how two mindset constructs (intelligence and giftedness), domain-specific academic performance (mathematics and reading), and gender relate to students’ educational aspirations on three levels (academic, vocational, and unknown). The growth mindset about giftedness was found to predict unknown aspirations, whereas the growth mindset about intelligence did not predict educational aspirations. High performance in math predicted students’ academic aspirations, but performance in reading did not predict educational aspirations. Gender-related differences were found, as boys seem to have vocational aspirations, but the effect did not penetrate all schools. Lastly, students’ aspirations differed between schools: from some schools, students are more likely to apply to university, while from other schools, students are more likely to apply to vocational education. Overall, the study demonstrated that a growth mindset does not directly predict academic aspirations, and the relationship between implicit beliefs and educational outcomes might be more complex than suggested.
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