Stereotype Threat among Latino School Age Children

Abstract

Stereotype threat has been proposed as a potential explanation for the academic achievement gap.Although the achievement gap begins early in school, little research has examined whether susceptibility to stereotype threat exists for typical academic tasks in elementary school age children.The current study examined stereotype threat effect among firstand second-generation Mexican immigrant school-age children in the United States.Specifically, the study examined whether stereotype threat impacted Latino children's performance on a math task, and whether generational status and ethnicity salience served as moderators of the threat.Results indicated that the participants in the stereotype threat condition performed significantly worse on the math task than the participants in the control condition, especially if the participants' ethnicity was moderately salient.Students who did not perceive ethnicity to be salient and those who perceived ethnicity to be highly salient showed no differences across threat conditions.