A New Hope By Claude Steele Chapter Summaries

Stereotypes, could potentially affect oneself performance still in today's society. Claude Steele, the author of Whistling Vivaldi, a research book base on research of stereotypes, stereotype threat, social identity, and social contingencies, reports that there are remedies to stereotype threat, including self affirmation, creating identity safety and changing your narrative. Expanding on steels remedies, my contribution on dealing with stereotype threat, are based on what he shared in Whistling Vivaldi.

In chapter 9 of Whistling Vivaldi, titled "A New Hope", was filed with ways of reducing stereotype threat. One of the main concepts Steele's introduced, self affirmation, which is very similar to the concept of having a backbone. Being "self

The remedy, creating an identity safety. This remedy gives the impression of creating a zone, which you are not bothered by any kind of triggers from a stereotype threat. This remedy could be achieved, when "being of importance" is encourage, and it also helps, but not truly required, a multicultural setting, where there are no true minority of ethnicities. Steele gives a situation on how, one could create an identity safety, "California,[...] the breakdown of students ethnicities was 33 percent Latino, 32 percent African American, 17 percent white,[...] and where the vast majority of t he students came from low-income families"(179) and "we would observe teachers in their classroom and measure,[...] their practices and as many features of their classroom culture as we could,[...] then see which practices and features enabled their students to feel more identity safety" (180). They view a multicultural classroom, then observed the teachers performance and the role of culture in the classroom. Through this study, many can figure out the classroom identity safety, the remedy will differ from classroom to classroom, but the purpose of creating one, is to avoid initiation of stereotype threat, and have everyone in the classroom feel significance, no matter of races or gender they may be. Steele quotes Dorothy, a person with importance, on the topic of identity safety, shares her description on what "creating an

Changing your narrative has much potential, to reduce stereotype threat. By changing your narrative, then you are more likely to become aware, of your accomplishment, and get better, when confronted by a stereotype threat. Steele gives an overall summary of "changing your narrative", "By helping students develop a narrative about the setting that explains their frustrations while projecting positive engagement and success in the setting , you can greatly improve their sense of belonging and achievement-which if done at a critical time could redirect the course of their lives"(216). Changing your narrative, will be a positive action, especially when the older narrative, is not working properly. Changing your narrative, at a crucial moment in your life, brings belonging and significance to oneself and could take your success rate to a high level. Having all of this at your disposal will indeed reduce stereotype threat. Nevertheless is this a very effective