How Does Stereotype Threat Impact Immigrant Students’ Learning?

Sabrina König

Stereotype threat occurs when an individual fears to affirm a negative threat about their group. In this video, SABRINA KÖNIG explores the extent to which implicit or explicit stereotype threat can explain learning discrepancies between immigrant students and their non-immigrant classmates. König and colleagues conducted a study in spring 2019 with 240 fourth graders (10 years old) in the German state of North Rhine Westphalia. The study identified no significant effects of stereotype threat in vocabulary learning situations. Stressing the importance of publishing this “null result” to counteract “publication bias”, König notes that ongoing work will explore the self identification of migrant status in greater depth.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB101080

Researcher

Sabrina König is completing her doctoral research at TU Dortmund University’s Centre for Research on Education and School Development (IFS). Having completed her undergraduate (2015) and masters (2018) degrees in psychology at the University of Trier, König has been a research assistant in Team McElvany at the IFS since November 2018. König’s main research interests include attitudes, stereotypes and stereotype threat as well as vocabulary acquisition. Her work has been published bySocial Psychology of Education and The European Journal of Psychology of Education.

Center for Research on Education and School Development (IFS)

Dortmund, Germany The Center for Research on Education and School Development (IFS) at the TU Dortmund University is committed to all areas of education research – from the description, explanation, and improvement of the organization and management of schools and the school system, to the analysis of educational processes and educational outcomes of students of different age groups in different contexts. Not limited to students, the research takes into account parents, teachers, school administration, and institutional frameworks. A special focus is research into the reform and development processes of schools and the school system, as well as the necessary conditions for these processes and their outcomes.