SPANISH PEOPLE SPEAKING IN ENGLISH

It is interesting to observe the huge power of stereotype threat. As we can see in the chapters (Steele, 2010), the stereotype is not discriminative. It may affect any person at any different situation in which a certain stereotype is activated.

So, what pop up in my mind are the validity and the fairness of the educative system. Are the exams and tasks being made in a correct and impartial way? The author says that, in chapter nine, he will offer some possibilities to reduce the impact of the stereotype threat on the performance of stereotyped students, so I suppose I should read the chapter before critique. But, in any case, I will question my wonder since it affects me directly.

Supposing that Spanish student are stereotyped with the negative image about their poor linguistics skills in English language, is it possible that this belief affects negatively the performance of the Spaniards during their exams or presentation in an English-speaking educative environment? If this actually happens, how could it be avoided?

My two next questions are focused on the validity of some tasks in the educative environment. One is seen from a general point of view and the other from an individual student perception. Firstly, the question relating to the educative system should be pose using broader terms. What is the validity of the tasks which may be affecting the performance of some stereotyped groups depending on how they are presented? Secondly, a similar question, viewed from an individual perspective, is based in the supposition that there are students who have the belief that they are not good at specific subjects or they lack specific skills, we can wonder whether an individualized stereotype can provoke a prolonged low performance in a student who beliefs he is not good at specific subjects. To finish with, and, relating to the two previous questions, a theoretical question would be delivered like this: Are the stereotypes just social images sustained by social groups or a self-negative perception created by an individual stereotype can be developed as well?

References

     Steele, C. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: and other clues to how stereotypes affect us. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.