The goal of the proposed project is the application of a social-psychological approach to understanding and remedying the racial achievement gap in school and on standardized tests. The study will use field-experimental, laboratory, survey, and longitudinal methodologies to develop and refine an intervention strategy aimed at improving the science and math performance of academically at-risk minority students (African Americans and Latino). In the context of randomized, double-blind experiments, students will either complete an identity-affirming exercise designed to alleviate social identity threat, or complete a similar exercise that excludes the critical treatment.( In a 15 minute exercise students are provided a list from which they select the value of most importance to them. They then write a paragraph about why it is important. Students in the control group will be given the same list, asked to select the least important value and write why that value might be important to someone else.) Outcomes will be official school grades, state achievement test scores, and psychological outcomes related to stress and motivation. The proposed research follows from previous work of the PIs, which offered initial evidence that threats to individuals? social identity (i.e., group identity) can undermine their academic performance.
