Recently, the Reinert Center hosted two book group discussions on Claude Steele’s Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do. A readable distillation of Steele’s social psychological research on stereotypes and identity (as well as subsequent research inspired by his work), the book can help us to understand educational performance gaps between students of differing identity groups. In our discussions, both graduate students and faculty members wrestled with the practical implications of this research for classroom practice.
To help instructors better understand what “stereotype threat” is and what we can do about it in our classrooms, the Reinert Center has created two short resource guides: Understanding Stereotype Threat [LINK] and Reducing Stereotype Threat in the Classroom [LINK].
To talk with someone about how stereotype threat may be operating in your classrooms and ways you can reduce these effects, contact the Reinert Center for a consultation [LINK].
This blog post is part of the Reinert Center’s 2016-2017 focus on Inclusive Teaching. To learn more about the year’s theme, and about programs and resources associated with it, see our webpage on Inclusive Teaching [LINK]. To talk with someone about how you can design and teach courses in more inclusive ways, contact the Reinert Center at cttl@slu.edu.
The Notebook 