Stereotype Threat-Based Diversity Programming: Helping Students while Empowering and Respecting Faculty

Abstract

As college student populations grow increasingly diverse, centers for teaching and learning are often charged with promoting inclusive teaching practices. Yet faculty cite many affective barriers to diversity training, and we often preach to the choir. These challenges led us to seek alternate routes for diversity programming, and stereotype threat has become the centerpiece of our endeavors. This chapter describes stereotype threat and related interventions, outlines our efforts, and offers evidence of its surprising impact. It also identifies the features of stereotype threat that appealed to faculty, led them to make pedagogical changes, and inspired them to spread the word.

Toward Learning and Justice, Through Love

“…They not only adopted classroom changes, but also took the initiative to share what they had learned. My colleagues and I describe the outcomes in an article on our stereotype‐threat‐based diversity programming (Artze‐Vega, Richardson, & Traxler, ), but to highlight one example, a computer science professor shared that, after the book group, she integrated the concept of stereotype threat into multiple workshops she facilitated—both within and outside the United States. By her own account, she had been empowered by the information in Steele's book to emphasize to colleagues that discussing stereotypes and implicit bias is essential to bringing in more females and minorities into the computing field.…”

IMPROVing communication about diversity, equity, and inclusion in health professions education

“…When mandatory, DEI trainings can be accompanied by a feeling of “blaming and shaming” (Dobbin & Kalev, 2016; Dwyer & Smith, 2020), which may eliminate opportunities for participants to choose to value diversity and result in more hostility than no intervention at all (Legault et al, 2011). Voluntary professional development programs offered over an extended time period may have more positive impacts on faculty's attitudes and pedagogical choices (Booker et al, 2016), but also tend to attract faculty who have already developed a proficiency with DEI (Artze‐Vega et al, 2014; Dwyer & Smith, 2020; Sweet et al, 2017). The current “checklist” paradigm for faculty development about DEI is not enough.…”

A case study in teaching inclusive teaching

“…In this context, some university faculty have worked to meaningfully improve diversity and inclusion-based pedagogical professional development, including by drawing on the research on stereotype threat, to improve the learning environments for their more diverse student bodies (Artze-Vega et al, 2014;Killpack & Melón, 2016;Sathy & Hogan, 2019). While this literature points clearly to the beliefs and practices that might help facilitate more inclusive learning environments, the evidence for how to scale such efforts-and how to train new instructors to create more inclusive spaces-remains sparse (Artze-Vega et al, 2014;Dewsbury, 2017). Our article aims to bridge this gap by drawing on our work in our university's center for teaching and learning (CTL) to answer the following questions:…”