Stereotypes of Minorities and Education

Abstract

Stereotyping is a phenomenon that impacts a range of people from diverse racial groups, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, and socioeconomic statuses. While all people are subject to stereotyping, the development of the process of stereotype threat (Steele, Am Psychol 52(6):613-629, 1997) has provided insight into how people from ethnically diverse groups are negatively impacted by stereotype threat to a greater extent than those from dominant ethnic groups. Extensive social-psychological research on minority test performance demonstrates that ethnically diverse students suffer underperformance due to their response to stereotype threat in the academic domain. These threats, which are a result of stereotypical beliefs, impact ethnically diverse students in a plethora of ways. In the Aotearoa New Zealand educational context, impacts from stereotype threat hold especially damaging consequences for Māori and Pacific students. The persistent disparities in educational opportunities and achievement for Māori and Pacific students are created and sustained by negative academic stereotypes

Pacific Parental Engagement and Intergenerational Storytelling in Aotearoa New Zealand

“…Like many minority groups internationally, Pacific students in New Zealand can be subjected to unfavourable stereotypes, such as being academically disengaged (Allen & Webber, 2019;Hunter et al, 2016). Subversive and arguably pervasive effects from negative stereotypes attribute gaps in academic achievement to Pacific students' home backgrounds which shape low teacher expectations for Pacific students (Turner et al, 2015).…”

Effective teaching for Pasifika learners – know me, teach me!

“…We were both confronted with what we understood as bias and prejudicial attitudes from one of his teachers who, through her body language and tone of voice, communicated disbelief in my son and his ability to attend university. While some may see the reading of this situation as not necessarily underpinned by racialised profiling or assumptions, ample research within Aotearoa New Zealand (hereon in New Zealand) demonstrates that, for minority ethnic groups such as Māori and Pacific, racial stereotypes about ability or lack thereof continue to be present in our educational systems (see Allen & Webber, 2019;Nakhid, 2012;Turner et al, 2015;Webber, 2011). Furthermore, as an experienced classroom practitioner with over 20 years' experience, and due to interactions like the one described above, I have come to the conclusion that the question of Pasifika student achievement must be reframed and respond to "What are teachers NOT doing to engage, motivate and inspire many Pasifika learners?"…”

Untitled

“…We move into notions of Pasifika success targeted at Pasifika students within Aotearoa. As a minority ethnicity group and like minority ethnic groups globally, Pacific students in the context of higher education in New Zealand are more prone to unfavourable stereotypes or "stereotype threat" (Allen & Webber, 2019) whereby they are typically deemed "less able", "less intelligent" and (comparatively) "academically" disengaged (Hunter et al, 2016). Connected to stereotype threat are the ensuing effects of low teacher expectations.…”

“…Based on these challenges, Pacific students-a minority group within the university-have faced similar challenges to other minority group and Indigenous students globally in higher education (Naepi et al, 2017). In the literature, Pacific students are referred to as non-traditional students (Wong, 2018), working class (Walker & Wilson-Strydom, 2017), low socioeconomic status (Universities New Zealand, 2018), minority ethnic (Blessinger et al, 2018), first in family (Wolfgramm-Foliaki, 2016) and ethnically diverse students (Allen & Webber, 2019). The circumstances outlined above…”