Laboring in 'borderless' world: The threat of globalization

This essay explores the meaning of ''globalization'' and places the current setting of the Mexico-U.S. border in historical context with reference to the process of ''globalization.'' It argues that if the current phase of capitalism merits the new label of ''globalization,'' it does so for reasons related to the new magnitude of corporate power. Transnational corporations have the power to undermine national sovereignty and the legitimacy of political systems even in the democratic republics of the West. The essay highlights aspects of the maquiladora industry in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, and the economy of El Paso, Texas, and suggests that the experience of this border region heralds changes in store for other regions of the United States and Western Europe: ''globalization'' is bringing about a convergence between the ''First'' and ''Third'' worlds.     

数学-性别刻板印象威胁的教育思考

数学成就的性别差异一直以来广受关注,许多人持有"数学是男性学科"的刻板印象,这一认知偏差会使女性在数学领域遭遇刻板印象威胁,发挥失常,从而强化原有的社会刻板印象.鼓励自我肯定、降低群体认同程度、丰富反刻板印象样例是降低女性数学-性别刻板印象威胁的有效策略.     

Social and educational reform in New Zealand: The promise and threat of information technology

Conclusion Implementing a curriculum is a function of what is promoted in a curriculum document, developed as school policy by the principal and staff, and put into practice by a teacher. All of these require engaging in extensive professional activity and concultation with the community. Consequently planning for the extended use of information technology by focusing on what may be promised by new curriculum documents, while ignoring political priorities and pressures, professional development issues, and community beliefs about education, exposes education to considerable risk.This paper has endeavored to demonstrate that curriculum developments in New Zealand are situated in a context which generates very different understandings of the objectives for the curriculum, depending on whether one heeds politicians, the business community, administrators in education, or teachers. Parents as well as teachers are vulnerable to the pressures arising from a heightened social emphasis on information technology, and their ideas about what should be provided in school are strongly shaped by that emphasis. Parental anxieties about future employment prospects for their children are not lessened by documents intended to guide teachers but emerge as being unable to provide a convincing rationale for the change.There is a real risk, therefore, that the promise of information technology's benefits to education and the wider community in New Zealand may turn out to be at best an illusion, and at worst, a foil for a social experiment of major proportions. Technology is perceived to be playing a significant role in both the deconstruction of the welfare state, and the establishment of a radically monetarist economy. Perhaps presenting the issues in a single broad conspectus may facilitate others' reflection on possibly extended meanings forthe information age, and theglobal village.     

Stereotype threat and gender differences in chemistry

Stereotype threat theory (STT) offers one explanation for achievement differences in math and science for both women and minority students. Specifically, STT posits that the perceived risk of confirming a negative stereotype about an individual’s identity group acts as a psychological burden that negatively impacts performance. This study examined the impact of stereotype threat (ST) on gender differences in chemistry achievement, self-efficacy, and test-anxiety using a four-group, quasi-experimental design. 153 introductory-level college chemistry students were randomly assigned to one of four ST conditions including an explicit ST condition, an implicit ST condition, a reverse ST condition, and a nullified condition. Results indicated that there were no gender differences by ST condition; however, overall, the men had higher self-efficacy and lower test-anxiety than the women. An analysis of open-ended questions asking students about their intent to major in chemistry, beliefs regarding barriers to their achievement on the chemistry test, and gender differences in opportunities and mental capacity to achieve in chemistry provided insight into the quantitative results. Implications of our findings for future research on ST are discussed.     

The buffering effects of rejection-inhibiting attentional training on social and performance threat among adult students

Concerns about social rejection can be disruptive in an academic context. We set out to train a positive cognitive habit that would buffer against social and performance threat thereby making students less vulnerable and more resilient to rejection. Participants from adult education centers (n = 150) were first trained to inhibit rejection using a specially designed computer task, and were then taken through a rejection and failure manipulation. Results showed that of the most vulnerable participants with low explicit and low implicit self-esteem, those in the experimental condition exhibited significantly less vigilance for rejection compared to their counterparts in the control condition. The attentional training also made participants with low explicit self-esteem feel less rejected after a rejection manipulation and less willing to persevere on a virtually impossible anagrams task. Finally, participants in the experimental condition reported less interfering thoughts of being rejected while completing the anagrams task, and overall higher state self-esteem after having been rejected and experiencing failure. The results show that training positive social cognitions can have beneficial self-regulatory outcomes in response to social and performance threat in a school context.     

Under threat but engaged: Stereotype threat leads women to engage with female but not male partners in math

This research tests how experiencing stereotype threat before a dyadic interaction affects women’s engagement with peers during a dyadic math task. In a pilot study (N = 167; M_age = 20.1 years), women who completed a manipulation of stereotype threat (a socially evaluative math task in front of male evaluators) experienced greater subjective threat than did men. In Studies 1A and 1B, math-identified female undergraduates completed the stereotype threat or control (doing math alone) manipulation and then completed a collaborative math task with another female or male student (who completed the control task). Sympathetic nervous system responses were collected to measure physiological linkage—the effect of participants’ physiological states on their partners’ subsequent physiological states—as an indicator of attention to the partner. We also measured the number of math-related questions participants asked their partners and task performance. In Study 1A (female-female dyads; N = 104; M_age = 19.9 years), threatened women asked more questions than controls did and became physiologically linked to their partners when those partners were speaking about math. Threatened women performed comparably to controls. In Study 1B (female-male dyads; N = 140; M_age = 20.0 years), threatened women did not ask more questions of their male partners than controls did, nor did they show physiological linkage to their male partners. Women performed worse than men did, regardless of condition. When working with a female, experiencing stereotype threat outside of a working interaction leads women to engage more; this effect does not occur when with a male.     

Response of school personnel to student threat assessment training

This article analyzes the distribution of mathematics achievement among class, school, municipality, and state in Argentina. Data from the Year 2000, 6th-grade Primary School Census from the Minister of Education are analyzed using multilevel methodology. The results indicate that all levels of the education system are relevant and must be considered. If all levels are included, the school “raw” effect is much less (18%) than if they are not (31%). Prior academic performance and socioeconomic level of the individual pupil, plus socioeconomic composition variables, accounted for most of the performance distribution among school, municipality, and state levels. These kinds of variables do not explain significant inter-class differences inside the school. As a consequence, the class became the superior level with the larger proportion of the total unexplained variance (15%), while the school variation represents just 8,6% of that variation. Finally, unexplained inter-school and inter-class variation is still significant making it necessary to further investigate relevant schooling and classroom factors.     

The psychosocial experience of high school girls highly susceptible to stereotype threat: A phenomenological study

The author used phenomenology to explore the subjective experience of ninth-grade girls susceptible to mathematics-related stereotype threat in their authentic learning environments. The sample constituted students categorized as either having low or high susceptibility to stereotype threat (SST) enrolled in Honors mathematics classes at an urban high school in the Northeast United States. Results showed that high-SST students experienced a wide range of negative emotions regarding both mathematics and its learning context. Emotions commonly experienced by this group included low self-efficacy and hopelessness specific to learning mathematics, frustration, and feelings of isolation (both social and intellectual) in their classes. Experiences common to these students were perceived differential teacher treatment, and stereotype endorsement linking mathematics ability to fixed traits such as race or genetics. Low-SST students, on the other hand, experienced positive relationships with their teachers, positive schooling experiences, and a malleable view of intelligence.     

Group norms, threat, and children's racial prejudice

To assess predictions from social identity development theory (SIDT; Nesdale, 2004) concerning children's ethnic/racial prejudice, 197 Anglo-Australian children ages 7 or 9 years participated in a minimal group study as a member of a team that had a norm of inclusion or exclusion. The team was threatened or not threatened by an out-group that was of the same or different race. Consistent with SIDT, prejudice was greater when the in-group had a norm of exclusion and there was threat from the out-group. Norms and threat also interacted with participant age to influence ethnic attitudes, although prejudice was greatest when the in-group had an exclusion norm and there was out-group threat. The implications of the findings for SIDT are discussed.