Intervention Stigmatization and Negative Selection
RCTClinical Trial
Voluntary academic or psychological support targeted at at-risk students can create social stigma by labeling participants as problem students, thereby reducing participation and increasing dropouts among non-attendees.
Picture this
When a support initiative is framed as special assistance for struggling students, participating sends a visible social signal to peers that a student is flawed. It resembles placing a "broken vehicle" sign on a car in a public lot; drivers avoid standing near the car to prevent embarrassing assumptions from onlookers.
What the evidence says
Treatment group students who attended zero sessions experienced a 9.0 percentage point reduction in 11th-grade enrollment (p < 0.01) and a 6.5 percentage point reduction in overall school engagement due to social stigma associated with psychological support.
- Who was studied
- N = 5,274 at-risk 10th-grade students across 20 public upper secondary schools in Mexico City.
- How
- Randomized field experiment combined with a qualitative process evaluation involving interviews and focus groups with 32 teachers and 216 students.
What to do
Integrate socio-emotional skills support into the standard core curriculum during regular school hours rather than offering voluntary out-of-school targeted pull-out sessions.
From the source
"Lack of information about the program's objective and limited familiarity with counselling and psychological support were quickly filled by stigma, labeling PODER as a program to help 'problem students'."
Addressing High School Dropouts with a Scalable Intervention: The Case of PODER