Effects of Black vs. White Peer Models on Academic Expectations and Actual Performance of Fifth Grade Students

Black and white fifth grade students of both sexes were shown one of two video tapes of other students working on an academic task (reading a paragraph and answering questions about it). On one tape, two black students were congratulated by the teacher for having gotten the best score, while on the other tape two white students were congratulated. Planned comparisons indicated that black males who viewed the video tape of blacks succeeding expected to, and actually did, score higher than black males who observed white students succeeding. All other comparisons were not significant.