What personal histories do students bring to the classroom?
Why social identities are important for learning
Na’ilah Suad Nasir is President of the Spencer Foundation and researches the interaction of culture and learning. Na’ilah argues that students’ social identities – their culture, race, and gender – are important for their learning. That’s because how students see themselves matters, and how others see them matters too.
“We each have a history, a personal history. Things we think we’re good at, experiences, perceptions, ways teachers have treated us in the past, and we bring that history, each of us, to any learning moment.”
Na’ilah Suad Nasir
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Children’s self-views develop early and can have profound consequences – helping children flourish or preventing them from reaching their full potential.
Well-intentioned inflated praise from parents and teachers can backfire and lead students to avoid more challenging tasks.
Teachers who believe that students’ abilities can change may be more likely to create a classroom atmosphere that benefits all students.
The stereotype that girls are naturally worse at maths than boys is false – but this stereotype appears to give girls maths anxiety more than boys.
Social identities, so that encapsulates culture, race, gender, are really important to learning. Both in terms of access, what people expect of you and what they give you access to, and then whether you feel connected to the topic or not.
We each have a history, a personal history. Things we think we’re good at, experiences, perceptions, ways teachers have treated us in the past, and we bring that history, each of us, to any learning moment and our communities
and societies have histories.
And so when you think about a topic like mathematics learning and girls, right? What we know is that historically girls have been assumed not to be good at math. And that matters both in how they see themselves and how teachers and others in learning environments see them and what they expect of them.
And we know that a lot of what happens in schools was constructed in white Western spaces. And then we just kind of offer it missionary style to communities around the world. Yeah, the model is flawed.
I think you have to be aware that that history exists and be proactive about countering it.
Footnotes
Na’ilah Suad Nasir is President of the Spencer Foundation and researches the interaction of culture and learning.
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