Identifying Monte Vista’s Stereotypes

Externally Administered Survey Discovers Improvements and Issues Based on Stereotypical Attributes

In the socioeconomically well-off school of Monte Vista High in Danville, California, a variety of students have different experiences during their four years. Though most students have favorable experiences, there are many who feel unfairly judged impacting the quality of their education. As a freshman at Monte Vista, I can feel the disdain of upperclassmen. Each grade is almost its own social class with the seniors being at the top of the social hierarchy. In addition to the classism, there is also a racial imbalance. This is clearly shown in the School Profile distributed to colleges, with the school serving 68% white, which opens the opportunity for racial discrimination. As an Asian, being part of the minority, the stereotyping that occurs can be mentally straining. The many biases at our school are not always black and white, in fact many are multifaceted, with different rationales behind them. Monte Vista’s social bubble has been greatly improving, welcoming more people to its society, but there are still ever prevalent issues that need to be addressed.

Biases are not always black and white, in fact many are multifaceted, with different rationales behind them.

A survey was conducted on over 100 individuals to understand the impact of stereotyping at Monte Vista. Some specifically knew the reason of the survey, but the majority took the survey with the belief that it was for a social issues project linked to the book To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. This comprehensive, 26 question three-part survey was designed to identify the issues at Monte Vista, focusing on threats tied to stereotypes. The survey defined threats and attacks as any negative statement against a person based on personal traits, such as bullying, teasing based on personality, and posting media in a derogatory fashion. Beginning with demographics, students were asked to identify their age, gender, grade, ethnicity and other attributes. In addition to finding which aspect of the school was contributing the most to these threats, participants identified the degree of discrimination based on different stereotypes . Finally, depending on their answers, students explained what they thought was the root cause.

Racial stereotyping is often perceived as a primary cause of discrimination at Monte Vista. Since the white population makes up the majority of the school, it is important to analyze their effect on the overall school environment. When asked to identify the number of attacks observed during the current school year, responses averaged five attacks. An overwhelming number of students thought the rationale for the attack (other than previous attacks), was Social Status. On the issue of racial discrimination, students averaged 3.4 on a 1–10 scale when asked how pressured they felt based on ethnicity. When isolating the other ethnicities’ responses, the results were surprisingly similar, with a change of only .1 or .2 in responses. However, there was a discrepancy between the two groups when they identified the type of person who would pressure them based on their race, where the minority group reported 47% of races other than their own pressuring them in comparison to whites who stated only 17%. When Asians explained a recent conflict, many stated that the act of not fulfilling the intellectual stereotype is degrading. As a victim myself, there are many times where not living to the stereotype can cause uncomfortable situations. With the increase of more diverse students, racial stereotyping at Monte Vista is decreasing, but there is still much room for improvement.

In addition to racial discrimination, the survey also inquired about gender and age stereotyping. Gender-specific questions found that both men and women felt that they were pressured at a 3 (out of a 10 scale), indicating that pressures based on gender are low. However, the same could not be said about age stereotyping. While lowerclassmen rated age-based pressures at 4.2, 11th grade students indicated 3.9. Though these pressures are low, when students responded on the people who pressured them, there were greater discrepancies, where 56% of lowerclassmen indicated that upperclassmen had pressured them, while only 11% of upperclassmen stated pressures from lower class-men. The effects of upperclassmen were evident during an interview with a 9th grade student, who stated, “When I was walking to the locker room after lunch, I saw a friend getting shoved into the wall simply because he was blocking an 11th grader. However, a group of 11th graders quickly came and asked ‘Are you ok? That was not cool.’ I believe while there are some people who still take advantage of 9th graders, it has been much better than rumors.”

Both a school’s structural design and personnel can either contribute or reduce stereotype conflicts. In a school where 78% of students believe that the environment is judging, it is important to find the root cause to make the school environment more inviting. Participants identified that the indoor hallways and the locker room were the locations where stereotype threats occurred physically. As we live in a more digital life, threats occur mainly on social media, with over 20% of students indicating that attacks happened only online. These attacks mostly happen during lunch, the after-school period between 3–6pm and break. Instructional periods ranked at less than 20%. When there is supervision, students tend to be more responsible, reducing the number of threats. In fact, when asked how can the school improve, many stated an increase of personnel on duty to supervise students.

Students responded with an average score of 3 out of 5 when they ranked how well Monte Vista has adapted to threats. Monte Vista has been improving its social environment by holding more events such as an LGBT conference and raising awareness about bullying and racism. When asked to summarize the conditions of Monte Vista in one word, the words chosen were mostly neutral, though there were more negative words than positive ones. In the final part of the survey, students identified solutions to the problems at school, with the most common response being teacher intervention. One example was to “look around at the kids who do bad things or leave trash lying around and don’t tell them to pick it up, but write up a slip for them”. Others explained how a shift in social education mentality would be beneficial, such as how a 9th grader explained that there should be, “More focus on serious issues such as threats to health of students made by others instead of worrying about students having their phones out in class”. Nevertheless, a prevalent response was “I don’t know”, which leads to an important point. High school is a period where teenagers go through the final stages of puberty and adolescent changes, and thus social interactions fluctuate as they are learning and adjusting to societal norms. Everyone tries to fit in to society, but surprisingly 12% of students did not feel a part of our society. The entire school, as a whole, must be more accepting of people, their personality, their physical attributes, and their skills, so that the 81% of students who believe that Monte Vista is judging can feel less pressured. When we all consciously work together to make our school a better and more inviting place, people change, and we all grow together, to become better citizens.

When we all consciously work together to make our school a better and more inviting place, people change, and we all grow together, to become better citizens.

Special thanks to Mr. Gavin Long for administering the survey and all the participants who completed the survey for this article. Thanks in addition to CL and SB for their insightful interviews that helped craft and tweak the survey to better suit the research.