(racial) stereotypes

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199908/student-stereotype/6
The Atlantic
"Thin Ice: Stereotype Threat and Black College Students"
by Claude M. Steele
August 1999

Here, Steele argues rather persuasively, using a variety of nicely-constructed experiments, that students who believe that their performance may reflect negatively on some group to which they belong which is stereotyped negatively regarding such performances perform worse as a result. In other words, if black kids think that there's a stereotype of black kids being bad at X, and they're tested on X, they'll do worse than if they take the same test, presented differently.

(or, in other words: http://xkcd.com/385/)

One way to combat this, Steele argues, is to convince students that they will be evaluated, and not their group. I want to say that this is right.

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When I see you, I should see you, and not whatever group to which you may belong. I should see the world as it is, unclouded by illusions or fantasies of how things in general work (e.g. "facts" about larger categories to which you belong). But wait - aren't there real statistical correlations, and therefore predictions (?), or at least decison-worthy facts, about categories? Is it wrong to prefer an X, if I know that X's are, on average, three times better than Y's at Z? (Steele is right to point out that this kind of reasoning doesn't often apply in obviously stellar cases of Y's, but takes over when we have less perfect information: e.g. when we are confronted with middle-range X's and Y's). Perhaps: there is a difference between correlation and causation. What we want is a causal relationship, because that will enable us to know whether the relationship will hold in the case of this particular X or Y.

In other words, I still don't know how to see the world aright.

(One of the interesting things about Steele's article is that it addresses this ideal from the perspective of its effects when it is recognized as a social reality (i.e. adopted by others) rather than discussing it from the perspective of the individual adopting it. What is interesting is how deeply social facts get under our skin, as it were.)