San Francisco Campus Kicks Off the Fall Lecture Series

San Francisco  September 24, 2007

San Francisco Campus Kicks Off Fall Lecture Series 

The first installment of the San Francisco Campus' Fall Lecture Series will feature Stanford University’s Lucie Stern Professor of the Social Sciences Dr. Claude Steele. He will present “The Psychology of Social Identity: Group Performance and the Challenges of an Integrated Society.”

Dr. Steele is the Director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the past chair of the Department of Psychology at Stanford University. He is a distinguished scholar whose research has focused on coping with self-image threats, the influence of group stereotypes on intellectual performance, and addictive behaviors. Dr. Steele is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Gordon Allport Intergroup Relations Prize and the Distinguished Scientific Career Awards from both the American Psychological Association and American Psychological Society.
     
Dr. Steele’s research focuses on identifying unseen pressures on the academic performance of groups (mostly minorities) that are negatively stereotyped. His research acknowledges that group inequality in educational performance is, for the most part, a product of group inequality in educational opportunity, but attempts to answer the question why do some group differences in performance persist even when opportunity is equal?

Dr. Steele believes that performing in areas where the abilities of one’s group are negatively stereotyped puts one under a persistent pressure, the pressure that any difficulty in the area could cause one to be judged and treated in terms of that group stereotype.  He calls this pressure “stereotype threat” and argues that it can be powerful enough to shape the intellectual performance and academic identities of entire groups of people. Dr. Steele will describe how when this pressure is alleviated and performance improves, and offer principles of remedy for this problem and discuss the challenges of an integrated society.

Please join Dr. Steel on Monday, October 1st from 1-  4 pm in the Farralon Room, located on the 2nd floor of the Pier 39 Aquarium across the street from the campus. Lunch will precede the lecture.