Published on Sep 28, 2024
The objective:
The objective of this experiment was to learn whether or not an eighth grade student's level of education affects their view of racial stereotypes when given a survey regarding popular racial generalizations. My hypothesis was that above-average students will have the most open-minded view on stereotypes than the average or below average students.
To begin this experiment, I gathered 5 classes of students with varying mathematical proficiency and administered the survey to them.
After all the classes had completed the survey, I organized the surveys based on their percentage in their algebra class, above-average as 100-85%, average as 85-70%, and below average as 70% and below.
I then proceeded to count the amount of instances students chose different answers for the survey questions.
After counting the answer instances I calculated what percentage of students chose each answer and saw what the majority of them chose.
After I had calculated all of the data, it showed that the below-average and average students had a much higher percentage of answering No Racial Denomination for the seven questions posed by the survey.
The average and below average students answered 71.4% of the questions with the majority answer No Racial Denomination.
On the other hand the above-average students answered 28.6% of the questions stating it as the majority. A trend in data that applies to the above-average and average groups was for the question regarding racism where both groups answered with a majority stating Caucasian.
Furthermore, the below average class gave this answer on this question the second-highest number of votes.
However, the most noticeable trend in data through groups was for question 6, regarding dropping out of school, where no students put Asian as their answer throughout the groups.
My hypothesis that above-average students would have a more open-minded view on stereotypes than their average and below-average counterparts due to their higher knowledge was rejected by my data.
The above-average students answered less of the questions with majority responses as No Racial Denomination while average and below- average students answered the questions with a much higher majority of that answer.
My data shows that above-average students will be more likely to stereotype against other people, which means more tolerance needs to be developed with them.
This project regards the effect, if any, that mathematical proficiency has on the view of racial stereotypes in eighth grade students.