Stereotypes Affecting Students Behavior

If a teacher was given a roster with the letter “P” next to the students who show academic promise, there is a likelihood the teacher and the students’ behavior would be influenced by this. The “P” would most likely affect the teacher by making them more biased towards the students with the letter “P” and cause them to act more favorably toward those students. For example, they may call on the “P” students more in class or give those students more positive reinforcement. Students with a “P” next to their name will most likely perform better and students without a “P” next to their name will most likely perform worse because of the phenomenon called self-fulfilling prophecy. A self-fulfilling prophecy is when initially false expectations cause the fulfillment of those expectations. So, kids with a “P” next to their name will respond to the teachers extra praise and attention positively and do better in class while kids without a “P” next to their name believe they won’t do as well as the “P” students, so they likely won’t work as hard, thus making that expectation come true. …show more content…
The teachers’ behavior would be influenced by this stereotype in the way that she would focus on the boys more in class and try to challenge them more since she believes that the boys will do better in class than the girls will. The teachers’ stereotype would influence the females by lowering their self-esteem and causing them to have a stereotype threat, which is the concern that one might do something to confirm a negative stereotype about one’s group. This stereotype threat would most likely cause the females to do worse on tests in the