Facing a complex situation like this makes most people uncomfortable. The more seriously you take it, the more you will see it as a real and difficult challenge that requires a coherent response. And that realization will, in turn, make you even more uncomfortable.

1. What Is Churn?

Churn is the mental agitation and physical stress we can experience in diverse settings. Its immediate cause, as noted, is stereotype or identity threat— the threat of being judged and treated badly based on negative feelings or stereotypes about our identities: our religion, race, age, sex, sexual orientation. This threat begins with knowledge that virtually everyone has— of the feelings toward, and stereotypes about, the major identities in our society. Then, when we’re in situations on which these feelings or stereotypes apply, this knowledge carries a threat: that we could be judged and treated in terms of those feelings and stereotypes.

Identity threat can be life-shaping, pushing people in and out of settings, even in and out of whole walks of life.

This doesn’t mean we have to live with the bad effects of bias. But it does mean that trying to mitigate its effects can be as important as trying to eliminate it altogether.

A big way that poverty undermines schooling is to make it seem irrelevant to one’s life.