University of Wisconsin–Madison
There’s a large body of research that links social class to academic outcomes like GPA. However, we know relatively little about how discrimination related to social class impacts students’ success. A new study in the Journal of Adolescence by IDS affiliate Christy Starr, IDS graduate fellow Anna Veenendall, and Zena Mello helps us to better …
Contemporary Educational Psychology (2025) Authors: Christine R. Starr, Lisa Hunter, and Anna P. Veenendall Abstract: Understanding what experiences relate to changes in patterns of motivational beliefs across a gateway STEM course can help educators promote growth in their students. In a diverse sample of students taking gateway introductory biology courses (64% women, 38% Asian, 30% …
Educational Sciences (2023). Authors: Christine R. Starr, Yannan Gao, Charlott Rubach, Glona Lee, Nayssan Safavian, Anna-Lena Dicke, Jacquelynne S. Eccles, and Sandra D. Simpkins Abstract: Though adults tend to endorse the stereotype that boys are better than girls in math, children tend to favor their own gender or be gender egalitarian. When do individuals start endorsing …
Group Processes & Intergroup Relations (2023) Authors: Christine R. Starr and Campbell Leaper Abstract: Women and underrepresented minoritized (URM) persons remain marginalized in physical science, technology, engineering, and math (pSTEM). Relative to non-URM men, URM women may experience a double disadvantage based on their gender and race whereby they observe few same-gender and few same-race role …
Journal of Lesbian Studies (2023) Authors: Ella Ben Hagai and Christine R. Starr Abstract: Researchers from the Philippines, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Chile, Canada, Brazil, China, and the US shed new light on important questions in lesbian psychology while subverting the hegemonic status of Western scholarship. Articles part of this special issue move away from treating LGBTQ + identity as a …
Analysis of Social Issues and Public Policy (2024) Authors: Alexa Vega Rivas, Ella Ben Hagai, and Christine Starr Abstract: In this study, we test a clashing narrative approach to conflict, which argues that political conflict is based on opposing narratives that negate one another. We focus on the role of two master narratives central to political …
Social Psychology of Education (2023) Authors: Christine R. Starr and Campbell Leaper Abstract: Nerd-genius stereotypes about people in the physical sciences, technology, engineering, and mathematics (pSTEM) are barriers to getting many adolescent girls interested in pSTEM. Endorsing these stereotypes may undermine youths’ pSTEM identity especially when they are incongruent with their self-concepts—possibly more likely for girls …
Sex Roles (2024) Authors: Christine R. Starr and Alan Meca Abstract: Implicitly stereotyping pSTEM (physical sciences, technology, engineering, and math) with Asian and White men can demotivate Black and Latina women in pSTEM. However, theory suggests that stereotypes might not affect all members of a group in the same way. In a sample of 345 undergraduate …
A new special report in Education Week profiles IDS Affiliate Christy Starr‘s research looking at how parents who didn’t attend college themselves can better support their children’s motivation for STEM coursework. Starr, an assistant professor in the UW-Madison Department of Educational Psychology, studies how parental support can impact students’ motivation in STEM. The challenge is multifaceted. …