Social Class is Dead. Long Live Social Class! Stereotype Threat among Low Socioeconomic Status Individuals

Spencer, Bettina; Castano, Emanuele

doi:10.1007/s11211-007-0047-7

Cited by 163 publications

(151 citation statements)

References 50 publications

(51 reference statements)

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“…In particular, Croizet and Claire (1998) found performance decrements among lower SES French students under a situation of identity threat. More recently, this effect was demonstrated in a sample of college students in the United States (Spencer & Castano, 2007).In addition to this work on academic performance, SES has been found to influence social and emotional well-being in the context of higher education (Ostrove & Long, 2007). For instance, in a retrospective study, Ostrove (2003) found that women from lower and middle-class backgrounds reported feeling more alienated or belonging less during their time spent at an elite college-echoing Walton and Cohen's (2007) work on the effects of racial underrepresentation at elite private universities.…”

mentioning

confidence: 88%

Middle class and marginal? Socioeconomic status, stigma, and self-regulation at an elite university.

Johnson

Richeson

Finkel

2011

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

223

231

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In four studies, the authors investigated the proposal that in the context of an elite university, individuals from relatively lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds possess a stigmatized identity and, as such, experience (a) concerns regarding their academic fit and (b) self-regulatory depletion as a result of managing these concerns. Study 1, a correlational study, revealed the predicted associations between SES, concerns about academic fit, and self-regulatory strength. Results from Studies 2 and 3 suggested that self-presentation involving the academic domain is depleting for lower (but not higher) SES students: After a self-presentation task about academic achievement, lower SES students consumed more candy (Study 2) and exhibited poorer Stroop performance (Study 3) relative to their higher SES peers; in contrast, the groups did not differ after discussing a nonacademic topic (Study 3). Study 4 revealed the potential for eliminating the SES group difference in depletion via a social comparison manipulation. Taken together, these studies support the hypothesis that managing concerns about marginality can have deleterious consequences for self-regulatory resources.Keywords: stigma, socioeconomic status, self-regulation, social identity threat It's hard to be the only black dancer. You feel separate, and you feel negated in a certain sense, and it's not that people are trying to make you feel bad, but it's just obviously around you. . . . It's hard to be strong enough to be in that environment and to not feel wrong.-Virginia Johnson, 2007 In the New York Times article, "Where Are All the Black Swans?" (Kourlas, 2007), Virginia Johnson, a retired ballet dancer, recalls the experience of being Black in the overwhelmingly White world of ballet. In the epigraph above, she articulates the subjective experience that can arise from the awareness of being different-feeling "separate" and "negated." In effect, she is describing the psychological experience at the intersection of underrepresentation and social stigma: Being different, with the implicit understanding that this difference renders one devalued, or "wrong" (Crocker, Major, & Steele, 1998). Now imagine another identity in a different context: A young woman from a relatively modest or even middle-class background, starting her first year of college at a prestigious (and expensive) private university. How will this student's socioeconomic background influence her experiences in this elite context? The acute awareness that her background is discrepant from her peers'-and, in turn, from the context at large-may lead her to wonder if she will measure up in other ways. For instance, given that academic achievement is central to the identity of the university, her marginalized status in this context may lead her to question her ability to meet its academic standards. In turn, managing these concerns may pose a psychological burden. The purpose of the current work is to examine this possibility. Specifically, the present research explores the psychological ...

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mentioning

confidence: 88%

Middle class and marginal? Socioeconomic status, stigma, and self-regulation at an elite university.

Johnson

Richeson

Finkel

2011

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

223

231

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“…However, to our knowledge, only three studies (Croizet & Claire, 1998;Harrison, Stevens, Monty, & Coakley, 2006;Spencer & Castano, 2007) focused on the reputations of intellectual inferiority which targets individuals of low SES, and none of them were done on children. This relative disinterest on the part of researchers is even more surprising since the existence of stereotypes regarding the intellectual inferiority of individuals from disadvantaged social classes has been well demonstrated (e.g., Berjot & Drozda-Senkowska, 2007, exp.…”

Section: Scholastic Success Socio-economic Origin and Stereotype Threatmentioning

confidence: 99%

So young and already victims of stereotype threat: Socio-economic status and performance of 6 to 9 years old children on Raven’s progressive matrices

2009

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The aim of this study was to verify whether children from low socio-economic status (SES) are victims of stereotype threat. Children in first grade (6 to 7 years old) and third grade (8 to 9 years old) performed Raven's progressive matrices, an intellectual ability test commonly used by psychologists. The test was presented either with the (evaluative) instructions recommended by Raven et al. (1998) or with non evaluative instructions. Children's SES and beliefs concerning differences of abilities at school as a function of SES were also assessed. The results indicated that, as early as first grade, participants believed that children from high SES are better at school than children from low SES. Furthermore, low SES participants' performance on the Raven's matrices was lower in the evaluative condition than in the non evaluative condition. The experimental instructions did not affect high SES participants' performance. The discussion explores implications of these results in the use of standardized tests to assess the intellectual abilities of low SES children.

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“…and those from low socioeconomic backgrounds (Spencer and Castano, 2007) in that it is normed and developed on English-speaking white middle-class subjects, whose set of educational experiences generally differ from the experiences of peoples of color and the immigrant population. Despite the Educational Testing Service's (ETS) acknowledgment of the bias, particularly against nonnative English speakers (Pitcher & Harvey, 1963, quoted in Basturk, 1999, the GRE is widely used as a criterion for admission.…”

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confidence: 99%

Racism and white privilege in adult education graduate programs: Admissions, retention, and curricula

Baumgartner

Johnson‐Bailey²

2010

New Dir Adult Contin Educ

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White privilege is a large part of the hidden infrastructure of American society, directing, driving, and often invisibly and subtly determining outcomes such as employment, housing, education, and even interpersonal relationships. In order for white privilege, a system that allows whites to prevail, to exist, there must be a counterbalance, a system that disadvantages others, namely, racism. The purpose of this chapter is to explore how white privilege and racism function in adult education graduate programs regarding admissions, retention, and curricula. To do this, we will focus on how these tandem forces work in the larger educational society in determining national and institutional testing policies, how the powers function at the program level, and how these powers affect the professors and students who comprise our graduate programs.Although Colin (1994) explored faculty perceptions, recruitment, students, and the curriculum, as well as aspects of admissions, most prior writings on these topics have largely explored singular aspects, including the experiences of black women faculty (Alfred, 2001), how white privilege and racism affect teaching or learning transactions (Johnson-Bailey, 2004), and the experiences of black graduate students at predominantly white institutions (PWIs) (Aiken, Cervero, and Johnson-Bailey, 2001; Bowles, 2008, 2009). This chapter will augment these writings, as we will offer a multilayered exploration of the existence 27 3

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Social Class is Dead. Long Live Social Class! Stereotype Threat among Low Socioeconomic Status Individuals

Cited by 163 publications

References 50 publications

Middle class and marginal? Socioeconomic status, stigma, and self-regulation at an elite university.

Middle class and marginal? Socioeconomic status, stigma, and self-regulation at an elite university.

So young and already victims of stereotype threat: Socio-economic status and performance of 6 to 9 years old children on Raven’s progressive matrices

Racism and white privilege in adult education graduate programs: Admissions, retention, and curricula

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