According to a recent Census Bureau report, American society is more diverse now than at any time in the last fifty years. Certainly as you walk around Stanford, you will note that one of its strengths is the diversity of its students. They bring with them incredibly rich and different backgrounds and experiences that shape their interactions with others inside and outside the classroom. To teach effectively in such an environment, you'll want to understand the varied backgrounds and experiences your students bring into your classroom and explore ways to foster an open, safe environment for all students. You may also find yourself examining some of your own unconscious assumptions. This is true whether what you teach falls into the humanities, the social sciences, or the sciences.

Recognition of the diversity in our society and in academic has already resulted in significant and much needed curricular changes. The "canon" has undergone and continued to undergo important re conceptualization and broadening in field after field. In the delicate area of faculty-student relationships, however, the need for change has been slower and more difficult. Professor John Rickford of linguistics notes that a student's background and experiences affect learning as well as his or her reaction to a professor or TA. Many students of color, for example, do not come from a tradition with role models for university-level academic achievement, compared with other groups where parents and even grandparents may have attended Stanford or Harvard. Students of color often feel that there may not be a place for them at Stanford; in some cases they ask themselves "Do I really belong here?" Students in academic trouble may feel that "I can't let on that I'm weak." The result is that students will often not reveal if they are having problems.  You can help by taking the initiative and offering clarification, feedback, and assistance to all of your students.

Rickford sees confidence as particularly crucial to success in academics and as a key to difficulties students of color may have. They may be coming in with less boldness or less confidence than other students, and this tentativeness can come out in their work. "It takes guts to take an original position, to challenge -- the secure and self-confident are more likely to do so. This goes beyond race and can also affect white students who for some reason or another feel tentative or uncertain in the academic arena."

Psychology Professor Claude Steele's research has pointed out that certain groups of students are particularly vulnerable to stereotyping, even when they know the stereotypes aren't true, and the feeling that their membership in a stigmatized group will affect their individual ability. This may evidence itself in anxiety during exams or in other classroom situations. He believes that this "stereotype vulnerability" may help explain why many talented women and minorities drop out of math, science, and engineering programs and why the African-American college dropout rate nationally is higher than for other groups (though at Stanford the African-American dropout rate is not higher than that of other groups). To counter stereotype vulnerability, Steele suggests that the sense of being "under suspicion" in their abilities must be lifted from students, not by remediation but by challenge, mentoring, research groups, and peer advising. A program based on his research, that he developed at the University of Michigan before coming to Stanford, has borne dramatic fruit in the performance of the African-American participants.

While looking at student attitudes is informative, faculty and TA attitudes may need scrutiny as well. As Professor Renato Rosaldo of anthropology points out, the University likes to think of itself as enlightened, but it is really no better or worse than the rest of society, and faculty and TAs too need to look at the assumptions they bring with them. Professor Al Camarillo of history notes that "we all bring stereotypes, attitudes, misconceptions from our rather homogeneous settings; then we come to a place like Stanford that is for many of us the most diverse place, ethnically and racially, we have experienced. I try to understand the social class context that the students bring to Stanford -- so that I can relate to that student. We are all shaped by environment; we need to try and understand it." Faculty and TAs need to suspend preconceptions, expect the best from their students, and be aware of how their stereotypes can affect their teaching.

How can teachers encourage and support all of their students? Rickford suggests that although there is a thin line between fostering and pampering, faculty and TAs should push students to the limit -- they should be demanding in terms of their standards but, at the same time, build up and support students. They should emphasize the positive whenever possible and provide resources to do better if needed. For example, if a student has developed a good argument, the instructor could take the time to give references for follow up. Sometimes support means encouraging the student to rewrite a paper; this is demanding, but students see the results. You can also get undergraduates involved in your research, an effective way to motivate and inspire promising but hesitant students. Instructors should also avoid negative remarks -- students remember them and play them back in their own minds along with all of the self-doubts they already have.

Such remarks can occur among students as well where they can unintentionally cause tension, isolation, and social distance -- if not some kind of overt reaction. This is another area where you can give leadership; you can help your students become more aware of their assumptions, more informed, more sensitive, more conscious abut ethnic, racial, and gender issues. Unless students are informed about attitudes they are bringing -- and the possible ramifications of those attitudes in interactions with others who are different -- their fears and reactions to the situation can make a sensitive interaction even worse.

Unconscious fears must be brought out into the open as well. One way to deal with bigoted or insensitive comments made in class is to ask the student to repeat the comment -- and to take responsibility for it. You can then ask the student why she or he holds that assumption, what evidence there is for it, and what other factors might be involved. In certain cases, you may want to discuss the issue further with the student outside of class. You can also sharpen students' awareness of their biases by sharing explorations of your own assumptions about people and ways of knowing and doing things. If you have changed your course materials in some way, you can discuss your reasons for doing so.

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Last updated: September 21, 1999.