Barriers Of Beliefs About Intelligence And Cognitive Abilities, Self Assessment, And Discrimination By Stereotyping

In the essay “When Brights Girls Decide that Math is a Waste of Time” by Susan Jacoby, Jacoby claims that girls develop deficiencies during their adolescent years by not taking math or science in their high school years. It can be argued that Jacoby’s thoughts on high school girls and math are incorrect due to the sexism that takes place in her essay, the amount of inaccurate and outdated information, and her argument that math and science is highly important.

There are many stereotypes regarding those with intellectual disabilities. This may be because these individuals range in cognitive ability, receptive and expressive language, and physical need. While it may be assumed that those with disabilities are not able to process the world around them, they are not immune to mental health disorders and the, sometimes tragic, events that take place throughout a lifetime. Someone without an intellectual disability may find solace in a friend, partner, or family member. If the event is impactful enough, they may even turn to a mental health professional that is trained to help those going through a tough time. Unfortunately, individuals with disabilities do not always have that same network of support.

Women have always been viewed as the weaker sex, and society will continue to view them that way unless they do something about it. In the essay “When Bright Girls Decide that Math is a Waste of time”, the author Susan Jacoby discusses the problems women steering clear of math and science subjects because of the traditional view of a woman. She focused on what causes high school girls to focus on arts courses instead of STEM courses and what are the effects of it on themselves. The underlying discrimination amongst boys and girls, stereotypical thinking of parents and teachers that girls are not good at math eventually decreases the self-confidence among girls to solve science and math problems.

A substantial amount of educational and psychological research has consistently demonstrated that African American students underperform academically relative to White students. For example, they tend to receive lower grades in school (e.g., Demo & Parker, 1987; Simmons, Brown, Bush, & Blyth, 1978), score lower on standardized tests of intellectual ability (e.g., Bachman, 1970; Herring, 1989; Reyes & Stanic, 1988; Simmons et al., 1978), drop out at higher rates (e.g., American Council on Education, 1990; Steele, 1992), and graduate from college with substantially lower grades than White students (e.g., Nettles, 1988). Such performance gaps can be attributed to

In brief, this article presents a view that women in engineering must enter the field as “conceptual men”.

Although the recent upward trends in the number of women in STEM fields are promising, they are not truly due to decreasing cultural stereotypes. Women receiving graduate degrees in engineering increased by 2 percent from 2000 to 2008, but this trend is not as hopeful as it may seem (Giges). This increase was mainly evident in communal fields like environmental or biomedical engineering (Giges). This is further evidence of the impact of cultural stereotypes and their influence on women’s career paths. Society’s expectation of women is that they serve as caring motherly figures and community-centered careers adhere

Dweck speaks about how children are not born smart but rather learn to be smart. Since early in childhood, we have grown up believing that we are either born smart or are just not meant to achieve more academically. Dweck believes if you can teach a child that hard work is more important than being considered the best without trying, the students can go further or achieve more than they thought they could. Dweck gathered up information by running tests on sixty-fifth graders, through a process that took years, they concluded that the ability to succeed depends on the ability to take failure. The “smart “ students failed and decided they did not want to continue trying. The growth-minded students decided to try until the students understood

Author Shankar Vedantam, in his article How a Self-Fulfilling Stereotype Can Drag Down Performance suggests how stereotypes can affect the test performance of people who belong to a minority. He supports this claim by first giving the statistics of a study that shows how african americans score worse on a test that is given by a white person than white people taking the same test. Then he says that people who are taking the same test do worse when they are reminded that they belong to a minority. He then explains how people do not really pay attention Vedantam’s purpose is to try and show people that stereotypes can harm and actually do damage to society.

In When Bright Girls Decide that Math is a ‘A Waste of Time’, Jacoby describes why girls tend to dislike math and science although they make superb grades seeing them as subjects designed for men. Girls often tend to not want to participate in math and science for the fear “that they will be unattractive to boys if they are typed as brains” (Jacoby 184). As young women continue to hold these beliefs that STEM isn’t meant for them nor is it attractive, it leads to women beginning to think they are incapable of reaching the same education levels of men, further barricading them from following their interests and dreams. Decisions to avoid advanced science and math courses eventually cause women to be unqualified for quality jobs, exclusion and anxiety about not understanding math and science as well as the opposite

Dweck has demonstrated that students develop a perception of intelligence and what it is. Some young people believe that intelligence is something that can change while others believe that intelligence is fixed and cannot be altered. Based on Dweck’s research, how a child perceives their intelligence level will affect how they perform in school (Dweck, 1986, 1988, 2006, 2010).

Dweck states that when she was in sixth grade she had a teacher who was so sure that people’s IQ scores told just how smart and trustworthy they were. She said they had one consuming goal- “look smart, don’t look dumb. Who cared about or enjoyed learning when our whole being was at stake every time she gave us a test or called on us in class?” (6). When my

Dweck’s work shows that students with a “growth mind-set” — those who believe that intelligence is not fixed but is expandable through effort and practice — are more likely to keep trying when faced with a challenge, and ultimately more likely to succeed, than those who are convinced that intelligence is something you’re born

There are many stereotypes that target women. People try to convince me that because I’m a girl, I need to act a certain way. I have been told that engineering is a man’s job, and I should pick something more suited for a woman. I have also heard that I’d never make it as an engineer because the coursework is too difficult for a woman to handle. I have heard numerous other gender stereotypes as well, but I want to spend every day challenging these stereotypes and proving that engineering isn’t just a man’s career.

Engineering is a field dominated by men in today's society, for many reasons. When people think about engineering they think about men with glasses and never does a women come to mind. However, there have been many studies on the skills that keep women out of engineering as a career yet there is no proof that women cannot or do not possess the skills needed to be a successful engineer. Therefore, it is thought and stereotyped that women do not have the skills to have an engineering career. Due to the studies and stereotypes the questions then arise as to what makes a good engineer. Many have the same response to the question but not one skill can a women not posses. Women are stereotyped as being dumb just because they are pretty. If a

Interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is thinning for women as they progress into higher levels. Women in grades 7-12 were surveyed to see if their interest in STEM fields were diminishing. According to Van Leuvan, this survey showed that there was a decline in interest as these girls progress through high school. Throughout middle school and junior high a love for mathematics can be developed. However, a loss of interest is present as soon as girls hit more demanding classes like calculus. Grades will highly diminished and a fear for comprehension of mathematics in the future will develope. According to the article “Women and Minorities in Engineering” a major outlook on success from students is their ability to understand calculus.