TY - JOUR
T1 - Self-Affirmation Effects Are Produced by School Context, Student Engagement With the Intervention, and Time
T2 - Lessons From a District-Wide Implementation
AU - Borman, Geoffrey D.
AU - Grigg, Jeffrey
AU - Rozek, Christopher S.
AU - Hanselman, Paul
AU - Dewey, Nathaniel A.
N1 - Funding Information:
The research reported here was supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Education (R305A110136) and the Spencer Foundation (201500044). The content is the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of supporting agencies.
Funding Information:
We thank Geoffrey Cohen, Joshua Aronson, and Valerie Purdie-Vaughns for advice during the design of this project; Jaymes Pyne, Alex Schmidt, Jennifer Corley, and Sadie Millen for assistance with the data; and Marcia Davis, Kelly Siegel-Stechler, and Dhathri Chunduru for reviewing the manuscript. The research reported here was supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Education (R305A110136) and the Spencer Foundation (201500044). The content is the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of supporting agencies.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2018.
PY - 2018/11/1
Y1 - 2018/11/1
N2 - Self-affirmation shows promise for reducing racial academic-achievement gaps; recently, however, mixed results have raised questions about the circumstances under which the self-affirmation intervention produces lasting benefits at scale. In this follow-up to the first district-wide scale-up of a self-affirmation intervention, we examined whether initial academic benefits in middle school carried over into high school, we tested for differential impacts moderated by school context, and we assessed the causal effects of student engagement with the self-affirming writing prompted by the intervention. Longitudinal results indicate that self-affirmation reduces the growth of the racial achievement gap by 50% across the high school transition (N = 920). Additionally, impacts are greatest within school contexts that cued stronger identity threats for racial minority students, and student engagement is causally associated with benefits. Our results imply the potential for powerful, lasting academic impacts from self-affirmation interventions if implemented broadly; however, these effects will depend on both contextual and individual factors.
AB - Self-affirmation shows promise for reducing racial academic-achievement gaps; recently, however, mixed results have raised questions about the circumstances under which the self-affirmation intervention produces lasting benefits at scale. In this follow-up to the first district-wide scale-up of a self-affirmation intervention, we examined whether initial academic benefits in middle school carried over into high school, we tested for differential impacts moderated by school context, and we assessed the causal effects of student engagement with the self-affirming writing prompted by the intervention. Longitudinal results indicate that self-affirmation reduces the growth of the racial achievement gap by 50% across the high school transition (N = 920). Additionally, impacts are greatest within school contexts that cued stronger identity threats for racial minority students, and student engagement is causally associated with benefits. Our results imply the potential for powerful, lasting academic impacts from self-affirmation interventions if implemented broadly; however, these effects will depend on both contextual and individual factors.
KW - intervention
KW - minority groups
KW - schools
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85055736499&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1177/0956797618784016
DO - 10.1177/0956797618784016
M3 - Article
C2 - 30183515
AN - SCOPUS:85055736499
SN - 0956-7976
VL - 29
SP - 1773
EP - 1784
JO - Psychological Science
JF - Psychological Science
IS - 11
ER -