Fear of the known? The effect of peer relevance and gender on women’s math performance under threat Abstract The goal of the current research was to investigate the impact of peer comparisons on female participants’ math performance when the peers varied on comparison relevance and gender. Specifically, the two studies presented here explored the question of whether male peers, who are seen as less relevant, can serve as peer role models (PRM) for female participants taking a math exam under stereotype threat conditions. Comparison relevance was manipulated by exposing participants to math-talented male and female peers who were from participants’ school or from another school. The key finding from Study1 demonstrated that exposure to relevant male peers lead to lower math performance compared to less relevant male peers. Study 2 replicated this key finding using a different manipulation of relevance. Together the findings indicate that when male peers are viewed as less relevant (and thus less threatening) they can serve as PRMs for female participants in “stereotyped” math situations.

Ingroup role models and underrepresented students’ performance and interest in STEM: A meta-analysis of lab and field studies Abstract This meta-analysis synthesizes research on using ingroup role models to improve the performance and interest of underrepresented students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). A systematic literature search resulted in forty-five studies that met the selection criteria, including the presence of a comparison group. Both lab and field studies suffered from small sample bias, with smaller sample sizes predicting larger effect sizes among lab studies, but smaller effect sizes among field studies. Correcting for small sample bias, ingroup role models had a small, but significant positive overall effect (d = 0.20) among field studies and a non-significant overall effect (d = 0.04) among lab studies. The only significant moderator was level of interaction, with in-person role models having smaller effects among lab studies (p = .008). Implications for interventions to increase the representation of female and underrepresented minority students in STEM and future directions for research are discussed.

The impact of occupational needs for education on education aspirations: a hybrid fixed effects model with lagged endogenous variables Abstract The notion that students’ aspirations are changeable with age is especially important in education aspirations studies. Researchers have acknowledged that individuals’ aspirations are changeable and the stability of their aspirations is important for reaching their goals. Despite the finding that the misaligned educational and occupational aspirations contribute to long-term adversities, the effect of occupational needs for education on education aspirations has not been estimated in past studies. Using a national representative sample and a hybrid fixed effects model with lagged endogenous variables, this paper investigated the time-varying effect of occupational needs for education on education aspirations over time in combination with observed time-invariant variables such as demographics, self-efficacy, and academic performance. The occupational needs for education turned out to have the strongest impact on all waves of the education aspirations compared to all other predictors. Ethnic group differences are identified in their impact on education aspirations over time. The lasting effects of socioeconomic status and grade point average on education aspirations over time are identified as well. However, there is no lagged effect of education aspirations over time. Several implications and recommendations are offered as the result of the study.

Participatory practices and political knowledge: how motivational inequality moderates the effects of formal participation on knowledge Abstract Democracies rely upon politically knowledgeable citizens for their legitimacy and to sustain themselves. In Australia, policy initiatives have addressed concerns about the low levels of political knowledge among young people. Yet research about how young Australians acquire political knowledge, beyond schools, is scarce. The present study referring to the concepts of situated learning, self-determination and knowledge gap, asks whether young adult’s participatory practices (e.g., participation in politics, prior involvement in decision-making at school) predict political knowledge. Analyses that control for multiple predictors of political knowledge suggest differential associations between political knowledge and different participatory practices. Motivational inequality, as defined by interest in politics, moderates the associations with party-political participation and participation at school; the conditional effect of party-related political participation is further moderated by educational resources. Gendered differences are identified for some participatory practices. Directions for future research and the importance of participatory experiences and how to establish a foundation of young citizens’ political knowledge are discussed.

Do adolescents’ self-concepts moderate the relationship between STEM stereotypes and motivation? Abstract Professionals in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) are often stereotyped as geniuses and nerds (e.g., socially awkward). These stereotypes may demotivate some individuals from pursuing or remaining in STEM. However, these beliefs may enhance motivation among individuals who feel that they fit in with the stereotype. Guided by balanced identity theory and expectancy-value theory, our study investigated the effect of trait-based stereotypes about people in STEM among a sample of 256 U.S. high school students (Mage = 16, 59% girls, 65% Asian, 15% Latinx, 10% White). We assessed students’ trait-based nerd and genius stereotypes about STEM and related self-concepts as well as their STEM motivation (competence and value beliefs). Consistent with balanced identity theory, the effect and direction of endorsing nerd-genius stereotypes was moderated by a student’s own self-concepts. Endorsing stereotypes was negatively related to motivation—but only among those low in the related self-concept. Among those high in related self-concepts (e.g., high in nerd-genius self-concept), endorsing STEM stereotypes (e.g., STEM is for geniuses) was unrelated to STEM motivation. Girls, underrepresented students of color, and potential first-generation college students may especially be negatively affected by the stereotypes due to a greater likelihood that these stereotypes will be incongruent with their self-concepts. Thus, trait-based stereotypes about people in STEM may perpetuate current gaps in STEM.

A matter of teaching and relationships: determinants of teaching style, interpersonal resources and teacher burnout Abstract The present study tests a model of the interplay between teaching style determinants, interpersonal resources, and teacher burnout dimensions, controlling for teachers’ experience variables. Two-hundred and ninety-seven teachers in the Portuguese educational system teaching in a rural region participated in the research. Using a Structural Equation Modeling approach, the key finding of this study is that teacher interpersonal self-efficacy and teacher–student closeness partially mediated the connections between teacher epistemological sophistication and student misbehavior and teacher burnout. Specifically, an increment of teacher depersonalization is associated with student misbehavior, when mediated by interpersonal self-efficacy and teacher–student closeness. Moreover, while greater attunement with students (meaning lower conflict) prevents emotional exhaustion caused by student misbehavior, it also has costs in terms of lower professional accomplishment. Thus, in intense interpersonal settings like schools, teacher interpersonal resources, especially teacher–student closeness and attunement, may not have an universal positive return for educators. Implications for future research are recommended, such as the replication of this model across urban and suburban settings. In addition, it seems warranted that teacher pre-service and service training readdress the topic of interpersonal resources as a means to improve teacher well-being, including its merits and limits.

Examining acculturation orientations and perceived cultural distance among immigrant adolescents in Portugal: links to performance in reading, mathematics, and science Abstract Drawing on data from the fifth cycle of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), the authors examined the relations of reported acculturation orientations—heritage as well as host culture-orientations—and perceived cultural distance between host and heritage culture with academic performance among 399 first- and second-generation immigrant adolescent students in Portugal. Results of hierarchical regression analyses, after accounting for student demographic characteristics, revealed a positive relationship between host culture-orientations and the first-generation immigrant adolescents’ performance on the PISA reading, mathematics and science assessments, and also the second-generation immigrant adolescents’ performance on reading assessment. Additionally, both the first- and second- generation immigrant adolescents’ heritage culture-orientations were significantly negatively linked to performance on the PISA reading, mathematics, and science assessments. Furthermore, findings revealed that first-generation immigrant adolescents’ perceived cultural distance was significantly negatively associated with their performance on the PISA reading and mathematics assessments. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Self-silencing in school: failures in student autonomy and teacher-student relatedness Abstract Self-silencing (Jack in Silencing the self: women and depression, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1991; Jack and Ali, in: Jack, Ali (eds) Silencing the self across cultures: depression and gender in the social world, Oxford University Press, New York, 2010), the tendency to silence one’s self-expressions in service of maintaining important relationships, has been studied primarily as a risk factor for depression in women. In this study, self-silencing in teacher-student relationships was assessed in a sample of college students (n = 142) and 4th-graders (n = 52), using a new scale adapted from Jack and Dill’s (Psychol Women Q 16:97–106, 1992) Silencing the Self scale. Self-silencing in school was shown to be related to several negative academic outcomes in both samples, including low behavioral engagement, negative emotions (i.e., sadness, anxiety, anger), and maladaptive strategies for coping with failure. The results of path analyses suggested that self-silencing relates to poor academic outcomes through its association with reduced student autonomy and poor teacher-student relationship quality. Based on these results, a reinterpretation of self-silencing through the perspective of self-determination theory (Ryan and Deci in Self-determination theory: basic psychological needs in motivation, development, and wellness. The Guilford Press, New York, 2017) is presented.

Success stories of educators with socially neglected students: perceptions and support strategies Abstract Socially neglected students are those who are unnoticed by their peers. Over time, this neglect may have a negative impact on their socio-emotional development. Therefore, the present study aimed to focus on educators’ perceptions and support strategies regarding these students. Ten case studies were analyzed, in which educators reported that they had succeeded in supporting a student who was unnoticed by the peers. It was found that prior to the support process, the educators described these students as lacking characteristics common to the peer group. Three objectives were identified in the educators’ support strategies: (1) strengthening the student in himself, (2) teaching the student social skills and (3) increasing the student’s involvement within the peer group. Success in the support process, however, was perceived by the educators as being primarily connected to achieving of the third objective. This indicates that educators attach great importance to the normative social involvement of socially neglected students. Alongside with these positive findings, some critical aspects regarding the essence of the educational support intervention and its objectives are raised.

Predictors of academic success in the entry and integration stages of students’ academic careers Abstract The aim of this study was to investigate the predictors of academic success of South African students. The study focused on 164 first to fourth year students. The extent to which students’ grade 12 performance, the type of high school they attended and their academic self-concepts contributed to their academic success during the entry and integration stages of students’ academic careers were examined. The combination of the three variables predicted a significant amount of the variance in the academic success of students in both the entry and integration stages of their academic careers. While all three variables made a unique and significant individual contribution in the entry stage, only grade 12 performance and academic self-concept explained a significant amount of the variance in the academic success of the students in the integration stage. Academic self-concept explained the largest amount of variance in academic success for both groups.