“Stereotype Threat” and Black College Students

This excerpt is taken from an article in the August 1999 Atlantic Monthly in which psychologist Claude M. Steele reports on his research into why capable black college students fail to perform as well as their white counterparts. The explanation, he discovered, has less to do with preparation or ability than with the threat of stereotypes about their capacity to succeed. In the article, “Thin Ice: ‘Stereotype Threat’ and Black College Students,” Steele, the Lucie Stern Professor in the Social Sciences at Stanford University, outlines many phases of the research, as well as specific strategies for helping students overcome the effects of the threat of stereotype. Space permits us to include a discussion of a few phases of the research only. The complete text of the article can be found on the Web at theatlantic.com .