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Stereotype Threat in High School Classrooms: How It Links to Teacher Mindset Climate, Mathematics Anxiety, and Achievement

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Abstract

As stereotype threat was initially examined in experimental settings, the effects of such threats have often been tested by temporarily manipulating social identity threats. This study expands the literature by examining 9th-grade adolescents’ naturalistic stereotype threat, using data from the National Study of Learning Mindsets in the United States (n ~= 6040, age: 13–17, Mage = 14.31, 6.9% Black boys, 6.5% Black girls, 13.1% Latinos, 12.3% Latinas, 31.5% White boys, 29.7% White girls). The results indicate that Black and Latinx students experience higher levels of stereotype threat in high school mathematics classrooms than do their White peers. When students perceive that their teachers have created fixed mindset climates, they experience greater stereotype threat. Stereotype threat, in turn, negatively predicts Black and Latino boys and White girls’ later achievement via anxiety. These findings highlight the importance of creating mathematics classrooms that cultivate a growth mindset and minimize social identity threat.

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Notes

  1. In the current research, Black/Latinx refers to individuals with a Black or Latinx identity, not those with both Black and Latinx identities.

  2. There were two additional items available in the dataset: (1) “My math teacher believes that everybody in my class can be very good at math” (reverse-coded), and (2) “My math teacher seems to believe students can’t really change how smart they are.” These two items were removed from the analysis after examining their measurement properties but before analyzing the data to test the hypotheses. These items lowered overall reliability and had a relatively low standardized factor loading in a confirmatory factor analysis (βs < 0.50). Compared to the three included items, the two excluded items may be difficult for students to judge.

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Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate David Yeager, Mesmin Destin, Mike Wayne, and the 2018–2019 National Study of Learning Mindsets Early Careers Fellows for their comments on the earlier version of this manuscript. The authors also appreciate Jenny Buontempo for her patient answers to the authors’ endless questions about the dataset.

Authors’ Contributions

ES conceived the study, designed the theoretical model, performed the statistical analyses, interpreted the results, and drafted the manuscript; YL contributed to study design, provided the interpretation of the results, and edited the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Funding

Research reported in this manuscript was supported by the National Study of Learning Mindsets Early Career Fellowship with funding generously provided by the Bezos Family Foundation to the Mindset Scholars Network and the University of Texas at Austin Population Research Center. The University of Texas at Austin receives core support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under the award number 5R24 HD042849. This research was also supported by Grant P2CHD042849 awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. In addition, this research was supported by Grant NRF-2020S1A3A2A02095447 awarded to the second author by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea. This manuscript uses data from the National Study of Learning Mindsets (https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37353.v3) (PI: D. Yeager; Co-Is: R. Crosnoe, C. Dweck, C. Muller, B. Schneider, & G. Walton), which was made possible through methods and data systems created by the Project for Education Research That Scales (PERTS), data collection carried out by ICF International, meetings hosted by the Mindset Scholars Network at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, assistance from C. Hulleman, R. Ferguson, M. Shankar, T. Brock, C. Romero, D. Paunesku, C. Macrander, T. Wilson, E. Konar, M. Weiss, E. Tipton, and A. Duckworth, and funding from the Raikes Foundation, the William T. Grant Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Bezos Family Foundation, the Character Lab, the Houston Endowment, the National Institutes of Health under award number R01HD084772-01, the National Science Foundation under grant number 1761179, Angela Duckworth (personal gift), and the President and Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences at Stanford University. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Bezos Family Foundation, the Mindset Scholars Network, the University of Texas at Austin Population Research Center, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the National Research Foundation of Korea, or other funders.

Data Sharing and Declaration

The data that support the findings of this study are available at https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37353.v3.

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Correspondence to Eunjin Seo or You-kyung Lee.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

Ethical Approval

The current study is a secondary data analysis of the National Study of Learning Mindset. The approval for the National Study of Learning Mindset was obtained from the Institutional Review Board at Stanford University (30387), ICF (FWA00000845), and the University of Texas at Austin (#20160310). All procedures performed in the study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

All participating schools were given a choice to decide the level of parental communication among active permission, passive permission, and FERPA exception. All parents were informed of the study and provided the opportunity to withdraw their children from the study. Informed student assent was obtained from all participants. Detailed information about the data collection procedure is available at https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37353.v3.

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Seo, E., Lee, Yk. Stereotype Threat in High School Classrooms: How It Links to Teacher Mindset Climate, Mathematics Anxiety, and Achievement. J Youth Adolescence 50, 1410–1423 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-021-01435-x

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