1. Are the benefits of self-affirmation for black and Hispanic middle school students greater in potentially more threatening school contexts, characterized by the group presence and relative academic position of racially marginalized students?
2. What are the prospects of these interventions to close racial achievement gaps in more and less threatening school environments?
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Researchers find that school context moderates the benefits of self-affirmation for Black and Hispanic students’ grades, with partial support among standardized achievement outcomes. Self-affirmation reduced the very large racial achievement gap in overall grade point average by 12.5 percent in high-threat school contexts and had no effect in low-threat contexts. These self-affirmation activities have the potential to help close some of the largest racial/ethnic achievement gaps, though only in specific school contexts.
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Racial composition correlates with academic achievement and demographic characteristics in predictable ways. Schools with fewer Black and Hispanic students are higher achieving in terms of both standardized tests and grades.
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The researchers found no effects of self-affirmation overall and no difference in this effect between the two school contexts. , Controlling for all other variables, Asian and White students also receive somewhat lower grades in high-potential-threat schools, but this disparity is not statistically significant.
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There are positive estimates for all subjects in high-threat schools; all estimates are consistent with an effect of a fifth of a standard deviation.
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They find no effects of self-affirmation for Asian and White students in either school context.
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On the whole, the GPA results clearly support theoretical prediction of an interaction between school context and self-affirmation benefits while the standardized achievement results provide only partial support.