A Stereotype Threat Account of Boys' Academic Underachievement

Three studies examined the role of stereotype threat in boys' academic underachievement. Study 1 (children aged 4–10, n = 238) showed that girls from age 4 years and boys from age 7 years believed, and thought adults believed, that boys are academically inferior to girls. Study 2 manipulated st...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Child development 2013-09, Vol.84 (5), p.1716-1733
Main Authors: Hartley, Bonny L., Sutton, Robbie M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Achievement
Academic success
Academic underachievement
Adults
Analysis of Variance
Anticipation, Psychological
Attitude
Awareness
Beliefs
Biological and medical sciences
Boys
Child
Child development
Child psychology
Child, Preschool
Children
Educational psychology
Educational Status
EMPIRICAL ARTICLES
Female
Females
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Gender Differences
Gender performativity
Humans
Male
Males
Manipulation
Mathematics
Mathematics Tests
Perception
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Pupil and student. Academic achievement and failure
Reading Tests
Schools
Sex Factors
Sex Stereotypes
Social Attitudes
Social Psychology
Stereo
Stereotypes
Stereotyping
Studies
Threat
Threats
Underachievement
Writing Tests
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Three studies examined the role of stereotype threat in boys' academic underachievement. Study 1 (children aged 4–10, n = 238) showed that girls from age 4 years and boys from age 7 years believed, and thought adults believed, that boys are academically inferior to girls. Study 2 manipulated stereotype threat, informing children aged 7–8 years (n = 162) that boys tend to do worse than girls at school. This manipulation hindered boys' performance on a reading, writing, and math test, but did not affect girls' performance. Study 3 counteracted stereotype threat, informing children aged 6–9 years (n = 184) that boys and girls were expected to perform similarly. This improved the performance of boys and did not affect that of girls.
ISSN:0009-3920
1467-8624
DOI:10.1111/cdev.12079