Claude Steele’s book, “Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do,” tackles many hardhitting issues that face educators and students today . One issue Steele focuses on prominently is the question of why black students are not graduating college at a different rate, or rather, more slowly, than their white peers, as well as other ways race impacts education. With every issue Steel addresses, he makes sure to assess how educators can examine and fix the problem before it becomes bigger, or jeapordizes any more futures.
As a social psychologist, Steel is in a unique position to understand education from a socially contextual point of view. Using data gathered from experiments based in social psychology, for example, he is able to explain gaps in racial achievement throughout education . Long since thought to be a lie, this issue is an ongoing result of ethnic segregation and racial bias throughout society, based on Steele’s data gathering. The results shed light on the aforementioned issue of blacks graduating at a slower rate than whites do.
Though the book, filled with social psychology data and research, may sound too complicated for the average individual to read, it is not. Steel has done a terrific job streamlining all of the data into a comprehensive account fit for any general audience. In doing so, the text easily explains normally complicated things like identity contingencies. These are conditions a particular social identity force an individual to overcome based on the setting. The reader is also privy to examples of how identity contingencies will affect the sufferer’s normal behavior, and how it can and has perpetuated greater and more damaging problems throughout society. It enables him to categorize identity contingency, such as the one most pertinent to his work with difference in graduation pertaining to race: Stereotype threat .
Stereotype threat occurs when we fear a person will judge us based on what they see, or a stereotype they assume we apply to. For example, a woman may feel stereotype threat if she feels afraid a group will take her less seriously because she is a woman. The feeling make occur specifically because she believes her gender will discredit her before she can open her mouth. Similarly, an African American may experience stereotype threat for a variety of reasons, as there are many stereotypes directed at African Americans. Specifically, Steele states an African American man walking at night on a street may be seen as violent due to stereotypes surround the male African American community. In order to reject the stereotype, an African American writer whistled Vivaldi as he walked through Hyde Park in the dark to show he had been educated, and gentle. Stereotype threat can occur due to age, gender, ethnicity, race, etc. and sometimes can be so severe it is crippling. It can change our behavior, and can change the behavior of those around us.
Using more data, the author is able to show how stereotype threats can affect various students, and their educations. The effort made by students under the strain of stereotype threat to reject these stereotypes is significant; it often detracts from their educational capacity. In some cases, it causes them to withdraw from academia all together. Subsequently, rejecting these stereotypes often cause a high amount of anxiety and unhappiness for students experiencing stereotype threat. The feelings may lead the individual into a depression, which may also result in a poor academic performance, or dropping out. Perhaps most importantly, stereotype threat makes the student feel as though they do not belong, and as if they are sometimes incompetent. They may begin to lack ambition. Steele explains that a part of these negative feelings is based on the setting’s contextual cues. For example, if there are not many African American faculty members, or few women, or no women of color teaching it can be difficult for some students to feel accepted. Furthermore, marginalization of certain groups in the coursework can also cause stereotype threat, which can trigger a negative academic reaction.
Fortunately, for educators, the book offers guidance on how to help students and counteract any negativity from these issues. Classroom exercises dealing with self-affirmation are recommended, as they allow the student to center, and begin to feel important again despite the schoolwork and their surroundings. It is important educators also stress philosophical aspects of intelligence in order to prevent burnout. For instance, intelligence is not fixed, but is a growing characteristic that takes time to nourish. Perhaps most importantly, educators can facilitate mentoring programs that can help students and faculty communicate more honestly and in a cross-racial setting. This will allow both parties not only to become more comfortable, but also to avoid stereotype and identity threats in the future.
In sum, Steele’s new book offers insight that has been sorely needs in the education department. The gap in achievement has been widening, and it is time something was done make things equal. The ways in which situational cues impact students, and how they are treated shape them as humans, and have an impact on their behavior later in life, just like their education. Not only are educators responsible for teaching in an academic sense, but they are responsible for teaching in a sociological and psychological sense. Now that it is being brought to their attention, educators have the opportunity to do something wonderful, and change education as we know it for generations to come, finally improving academia, but also race relations as we have dreamed of doing for decades. It is time to stop talking about why things are the way they are, and fix them; Steele is beginning to give tools in which to do that.
References
Steel, C. M. (2011). Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (Issues of Our Time). Boston: W. W. Norton & Company.
