Seeing the Destination AND the Path: Using Identity‐Based Motivation to Understand and Reduce Racial Disparities in Academic Achievement

Abstract

African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans aspire to do well in school but often fall short of this goal. We use identity‐based motivation theory as an organizing framework to understand how macrolevel social stratification factors including minority–ethnic group membership and low socioeconomic position (e.g., parental education, income) and the stigma they carry, matter. Macrolevel social stratification differentially exposes students to contexts in which choice and control are limited and stigma is evoked, shaping identity‐based motivation in three ways. Stratification influences which behaviors likely feel congruent with important identities, undermines belief that one's actions and effort matter, and skews chronic interpretation of one's experienced difficulties with schoolwork from interpreting experienced difficulty as implying importance (e.g., “it's for me”) toward implying “impossibility.” Because minority students have high aspirations, policies should invest in destigmatizing, scalable, universal, identity‐based motivation‐bolstering institutions and interventions.

Drivers of human development: How relationships and context shape learning and development1

“…Macrosystem factors are operationalized through rituals, policies, protocols, routinized practices, and opportunity structures. Children and adults experience macrosystem factors directly through attitudes, behaviors, and routines that affect how children experience and react to environments and indirectly through social stigma and exposure to contexts where opportunities for enrichment and choice are limited or absent (e.g., Oyserman & Lewis, 2017). Consistent with DST, macrosystem and microsystem contexts are interlinked and exert powerful effects on development.…”

The Influence of Affirming Kindness and Community on Broadening Participation in STEM Career Pathways

“…In line with this deficit thinking, traditional approaches to increase participation and success of HU students and faculty have focused on what they are "missing" (e.g., preparation, mentorship, skills, motivation) rather than capitalizing on the strengths that they bring (Thoman, Brown, Mason, Harmsen, & Smith, 2014). Even within social psychology, there have been decades of research on the barriers to success such as prejudice, racism, conflict, and threats, and on what makes students more able to persist anyway (e.g., by shifting efficacy, motivation, grit, and mindset) , 2014Duckworth et al, 2007;Duckworth, and Quinn, 2009;Dweck, 2006;Hernandez et al, 2012;Lent et al, 2005;Oyserman, and Lewis, 2017;Wilson et al, 2012). The majority of positive research programs, as described in this manuscript, are relatively recent with room for growth.…”

“…Much has been written about how to decrease these achievement gaps (Graham, Frederick, Byars-Winston, Hunter, & Handelsman, 2013;Linn, Palmer, Baranger, Gerard, & Stone, 2015). However, social science research has placed the majority of emphasis on what student attributes lead to perseverance, including studies on student efficacy, motivation, grit, and mindset (e.g., entity and incremental theories) , 2014Duckworth, Peterson, Matthews, and Kelly, 2007;Duckworth, and Quinn, 2009;Dweck, 2006;Hernandez, Schultz, Estrada, and Chance, 2012;Lent et al, 2005;Oyserman, and Lewis, 2017;Wilson et al, 2012). Meanwhile, the research that describes contextual factors tends to focus on describing negative factors such as racism, stereotype threat, prejudice, and a variety of implicit cognitive biases that contribute toward the perpetuation of these (Dunham, Baron, & Banaji, 2008;Greenwald, & Banaji, 1995).…”

The Effectiveness of School Choice: A Value Analytical Approach

“…Minority children are more likely to be from low-income families whose members attained low levels of education, which place them at the bottom of the social hierarchy (Oyserman & Lewis, 2017). In research on education and stratification, educational attainment is well understood as a resource.…”

“…A better-educated population is associated with more democracy and increased civic participation, higher economic growth, and a better functioning economy (Oyserman & Lewis, 2017). Yet, disparities in educational opportunities, attainment, and achievement exist among different student populations in the United States (Nielsen, 2013).…”