I never imagined that Barack Obama's election to the presidency would mean every racist white American would suddenly embrace their black fellow citizens. Actually I'm not sure anyone did or does, though the idea was often used as a straw man by critics of Obama-hype during 2008. What always seemed more plausible to me was that having a black president in the White House would have a powerful and positive effect amongst blacks themselves. Which is why this report on the results of a psychological experiment is so encouraging.
The experiment was designed by researchers into one of the most intractable and pernicious social problems in American life: blacks consistently perform worse than whites in exams. The researchers wanted to see if having a role model like Obama might make a difference. A 20-question test was administered four times to groups of black and white students, over a period of time extending from before Obama's nomination to after his election victory. The performance of the black group, inferior to the white group in the first tests, improved, until by the end the difference was statistically insignificant. The researchers have concluded that Obama's success has lowered the anxiety that black students feel when answering exam questions and hence improved their performance.
Caveats: this paper hasn't yet been subject to peer review, it may be flawed, it may be the record of a blip and signify no deeper underlying change. But as it's less than a week since Inauguration, I think a little hope is permissible.
This result is not at all surprising. It has been known from experiments 30-odd years ago that black American students perform statistically significantly better in IQ tests when the test papers are handed out by black invigilators than when the test papers are handed out by white invigilators. Presumably seeing a black person in a position of authority increases the student's self-esteem and hence their self-confidence.
Posted by: peter | January 25, 2009 at 06:01 PM
Buzzkill!
But seriously - it may not be news that black students' underperformance is affected by confidence... it may not even be 'surprising' that a black president makes them more confident. But - if true - it's still somehow astonishing, and inspiring. To me anyway.
Posted by: Ian Leslie | January 25, 2009 at 07:41 PM
If true, it's damn good news. People of all stripes (no pun intended) and ages need more can-do spirit and optimism these days. A Paris-based friend just returned from a trip to visit family in Philadelphia; he reported, in terms of the economy, "Man, it's bleak over there. You can smell the fear." Oy vey!
Posted by: Lyle | January 26, 2009 at 01:38 AM