Whistling Vivaldi Book Club, spring 2021

Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do, by Claude Steele

"Claude M. Steele ... offers a vivid first-person account of the research that supports his groundbreaking conclusions on stereotypes and identity. He sheds new light on American social phenomena from racial and gender gaps in test scores to the belief in the superior athletic prowess of black men, and lays out a plan for mitigating these "stereotype threats" and reshaping American identities." - W. W. Norton & Company website

Overview

We will read approximately 1/3 of the book before each discussion. Before each meeting, each participant will post a reflection to our private discussion board to prime the pump for our group discussion. We will have a mechanism for participants to pose anonymous questions as well. This book club is offered as a collaboration between SAGE 2YC and NAGT's 2YC Division. We expect to have members of both communities participating in the discussion series.

Discussion series goals

The goal of these meetings is for each participant to find strategies that they can implement. The book has many practical recommendations, all of them based on extensive research on stereotype threat.

Dates and meeting times

We will run two sections of this book club in May-June 2021:

  • Thursdays, May 6, May 20, and June 3, at 10:00 Hawaii / 1:00 Pacific / 2:00 Mountain / 3:00 Central / 4:00 Eastern. Leaders: Dave Voorhees and Carol Ormand
  • Fridays, May 7, May 21, and June 4, at 7:00 Hawaii / 10:00 Pacific / 11:00 Mountain / 12:00 Central / 1:00 Eastern. Leaders: Bridget James and Carol Ormand 

Structure and format

Each book club section will have three synchronous meetings over zoom, with an asynchronous assignment to be completed in advance of each synchronous meeting. The asynchronous assignments will be to read 3-4 chapters and post a reflection to our private discussion board.

We scheduled two weeks between each of the 3 synchronous discussions in this series to allow time for participants to read and digest the material and to formulate questions for the synchronous discussions.

Additional resources

References

Steele, Claude M. Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do.