Does students’ awareness of school-track-related stereotypes exacerbate inequalities in education?

Early ability tracking increases inequalities in education. It has been proposed that the awareness of negative school-track-related stereotypes contributes to educational inequalities, as stereotype awareness interferes with students’ abilities to thrive, particularly those in lower, stigmatized tr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:NPJ science of learning 2023-12, Vol.8 (1), p.59-59, Article 59
Main Authors: Bardach, Lisa, Neuendorf, Claudia, Murayama, Kou, Fahrbach, Thorsten, Knigge, Michel, Nagengast, Benjamin, Trautwein, Ulrich
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
706/689/160
706/689/477/2811
706/689/522
Academic achievement
Achievement tests
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Education
Educational Technology
Hypotheses
Learning
Life Sciences
Longitudinal studies
Mathematical Models of Cognitive Processes and Neural Networks
Neurobiology
Neuropsychology
Neurosciences
Secondary school students
Secondary schools
Self esteem
Socioeconomic factors
Stereotypes
Stigma
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Summary:Early ability tracking increases inequalities in education. It has been proposed that the awareness of negative school-track-related stereotypes contributes to educational inequalities, as stereotype awareness interferes with students’ abilities to thrive, particularly those in lower, stigmatized tracks. The present study tested this assumption in a sample of 3880 German secondary school students from three tracks, who were assessed four times on stereotype awareness regarding their own school track and academic outcomes (achievement, engagement, self-concept) between Grades 5 and 8. Students in the lowest track reported higher levels of stereotype awareness than higher track students or students attending a combined track. Stereotype awareness increased across time in all tracks. Contrary to our preregistered hypotheses, however, the results from multigroup models revealed that (changes in) stereotype awareness were not more strongly related to (changes in) most outcomes in the lowest track in comparison with the other two tracks.
ISSN:2056-7936
2056-7936
DOI:10.1038/s41539-023-00203-9