Stereotype threat
Submitted by James on Sat, 02/21/2009 - 10:38am
"AS Department of Education officials consider how best to spend billions from the economic stimulus plan, they would be wise to pay attention to which programs actually help children’s achievement — and keep in mind that sometimes very small influences in children’s lives can have very big effects."
"Consider, for example, what the social psychologists Claude Steele and Joshua Aronson have described as “stereotype threat,” which hampers the performance of African-American students. Simply reminding blacks of their race before they take an exam leads them to perform worse, their research shows."
Excerpts from the New York Times last week.
Reparations
I believe generally that there is a price to be paid for hurting other people.
We as a society have not done nearly enough to atone for the injustice forced on Native Americans and African Americans.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
reparations no
reparations no
I'm a moderate Democrat.
Thank you for sharing
sort of.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
I want to see testing/study results
after we've had 4 (8, please the gods!) years of President Obama and his family in the spotlight. It's natural for children to look up to and identify with people who look like them.
I'm not saying that there aren't positive role models out there - but having an African American family as the most visible family in the world will surely help.
And as for reparations
I don't know. I don't see how simply throwing money at a situation helps - but putting a lot of money into education, especially culturally sensitive early education would do be a good start. (And every child, no matter their race, would be able to face life a little bit better prepared.)
That would be part of my plan
Most people think reparations means cash. I don't. For example, I consider Affirmative Action part of reparations. We should go way outside the box on thinking about this. There's no magic answer.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
One of the best uses of YouTube
That video has been one of my favorites for years. I'm so glad it's on YouTube.
As for Reparations... The people who have suffered the most from the slave trade and other forms of imperialism are Africans. We'll never see formal economic reparations paid to black Americans. But it would sure be great to see our country and other colonizing powers decide to make significant investments in our poorest continent.