Stereotype Threat and Tracking in High School Math Classes

Abstract

The areas of stereotype threat and educational tracking are both widely researched, however the connections between these two topics have never been explored. Women are negatively stereotyped in the domain of mathematics relative to men, and this proposed study analyzed whether tracking in mathematics decreases or increases math-related stereotype threat for female students. Psychological and educational literature on stereotype threat and tracking were analyzed. A comparative study was then proposed to examine eleventh grade students in three different math classes from a private all-female school and a public mixed-gender school. Results analyzed students’ grades, GPA, and questionnaires designed to measure academic ability and concepts related to stereotype threat that were completed four times throughout the school year. It was expected that low-track females would have higher stereotype threat scores than high-track females, for females to have higher stereotype threat scores than male students, and for stereotype threat to be higher in the mixed-gender school than the all-female school.