Assistant Professor of Psychology Kristina Howansky and collaborators recently published "Identity safety cues predict instructor impressions, belonging, and absences in the psychology classroom" in the journal Teaching of Psychology. This work aimed to explore some of the possible benefits of identity safety cues - signals to let students' know diverse identities are valued in their classroom - in the higher-ed classroom. Researchers found that identify safety cues were associated with more positive impressions of students' professor, a higher sense of belonging in the class, and even fewer absences. Although the safety cues were aimed at specific populations, they were associated with positive outcomes across student identities, even those not specifically targeted by the cues. Provided in the article are concrete examples and small steps faculty can make to signal their values of inclusion to students.
You can read the abstract here. Teaching of Psychology articles are available for the SMCM community to access through the Hilda C. Landers Library.
The acknowledgements section of the paper includes a shoutout to psychology department members Assistant Professor Gili Freedman, Assistant Professor Ayse Ikizler, and Associate Professor Scott Mirable for their feedback on the manuscript. It also gives thanks to psychology majors Gabrielle Backus, Jannah Mawuli, and India Oates.
