The effect of math exemplars on math stereotypes: An experiment with Black and Latinx middle school students.

Objectives: Math stereotypes targeting gender and ethnic-racial groups emerge early in life and are maintained through adolescence, including the middle school age period. These stereotypes undermine girls' and ethnic and racial minority (ERM) children's math interests and confidence, and intervening during middle school may contribute to preventing the impact of stereotypes on math pursuit and persistence. This study examines the impact of a bias-reducing intervention used with adults-exposure to counterstereotypical role models-on diminishing math stereotypes about gender and ethnicity/race among middle school students from ERM groups.

Method: An experiment with middle school girls and boys from schools with predominantly Black and Latinx students examined the effect of exposure to women and men math professionals who vary in their gender and ethnic-racial group memberships on gender and ethnic-racial math stereotypes. The moderating role of math identity was also explored.

Results: The main results showed that boy participants generally expressed stronger gender math stereotypes than girl participants, but exposure to ERM women math professionals reduced boy participants' gender math stereotypes. Further, math identity moderated the impact of exposure to women math professionals. After exposure to women (compared to men) math professionals, boys with weaker math identities and girls with stronger math identities exhibited reduced gender math stereotypes. However, no such effects emerged among boys with strong math identities and girls with weak math identities.

Conclusions: This research underscores the importance of diversity in math professions, and it has implications for the role of intersectionality in addressing math stereotypes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).