The contributing role of stereotype threat (ST) to learning and performance decrements for stigmatized students in highly evaluative situations has been vastly documented and is now widely known by educators and policy makers. However, recent research illustrates that underrepresented and stigmatized students’ academic and career motivations are influenced by ST more broadly, particularly through influences on achievement orientations, sense of belonging, and intrinsic motivation. Such a focus moves conceptualizations of ST effects in education beyond the influence on a student’s performance, skill level, and feelings of self-efficacy per se to experiencing greater belonging uncertainty and lower interest in stereotyped tasks and domains. These negative experiences are associated with important outcomes such as decreased persistence and domain identification, even among students who are high in achievement motivation. In this vein, we present and review support for the Motivational Experience Model of ST, a self-regulatory model framework for integrating research on ST, achievement goals, sense of belonging, and intrinsic motivation to make predictions for how stigmatized students’ motivational experiences are maintained or disrupted, particularly over long periods of time.
On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-gender marriage. From California to Missouri, nearly all states now face legislative challenges to the once firmly entrenched notion that marriage can only exist between a man and a woman. Public opinion polls conducted from 1977 to 2004 found that Americans' attitudes toward gay men and lesbians and marriages or civil unions for same-gender couples have evolved. Opposition persists, however. The most recent data indicate support for some legal recognition of gay and lesbian couples, but most Americans favor civil unions over same-gender marriages. Although the future of civil unions and same-gender marriages remains uncertain, social workers can serve gay and lesbian clients and their families best by staying informed of the attendant legal, social, and policy issues.
Social cognitive career theory (SCCT; Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994, 2000) holds that contextual barriers inhibit self-efficacy and goal choice intentions from points both near and far from the active career development situation. The current study examined the influence of one such proximal barrier, stereotype threat, on attainment of these outcomes among women considering careers in science. Participants were female undergraduate students (N = 439) enrolled in chemistry and physics laboratory classes. As predicted, results indicated that stereotype threat exerted a significant negative indirect effect on women’s science career choice intentions in physics but not chemistry. Single-pathway models positing a chain of effects of stereotype threat via science self-efficacy and intentions to pursue undergraduate research were also shown to fit the data better than multiple-pathway models in both physics and chemistry. Implications for the career development of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are discussed.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.