There are two ways to combat stereotype threat: change students’ beliefs about belonging in the classroom or change their socioculturally-influenced classroom and school environments.
We can reframe students' beliefs about failure so they don't feel excluded when they experience setbacks. Examples are interventions that assist historically subordinated populations of students such as African Americans women in STEM and ESL (English as a second language) students in reinterpreting their daily academic adversities as simply a consequence of the day rather than a reflection of their right to belong in the classroom.
To operate smoothly society needs people to fit into it. Norms when set and followed by people become expectations of conduct by groups within society. When teachers introduce norms into the classroom they must adhere to them as well as demonstrated by Wilson and Kelling's broken windows theory (1982). Teachers can motivate and model normative behavior consciously and proactively by beginning a school year with a session where students work with the teacher to establish a set of classroom norms. This also has the effect of increasing students' senses of belonging and connection in the classroom community.
On the topic of changing the sociocultural environment Bartolome (1994) posits that subordinated students tend to not succeed academically in schools because of the asymmetrical power relations among cultural groups which represents a form of dehumanization - robbing students of their culture language history and values. These practices are inherently discriminatory and Batolome cites Ogbu (1987) and Giroux (1992) with regard to the antagonistic race relations between subordinated students and White school personnel.
She then goes on to say that teachers can maintain the status quo - asymmetrical power relations in the classroom among different cultural groups - or work consciously toward classroom and school transformation to eradicate inequalities which perpetuate the status quo. By understanding students' preferred ways of communicating and interacting in the classroom teachers can foster a sense of belonging for all students further learning objectives and even improve students' performance on standardized reading tests.
Stereotypes are everywhere and create socially informative scenarios even when individuals are alone. What does society value? Whose work is valued? Stereotype threat can have negative impacts on the academic performance of women in STEM fields who are explicitly or implicitly shown negative portrayals of women in STEM. It can also affect whether they decide to identify as members of the group women in STEM. To understand how to counter stereotype threat Cohen Garcia Apfel & Master (2006) conducted a study where students did self-affirmations at the beginning of the semester where they wrote about their most cherished values. This led to improved performance in the class where they did the self-affirmation and in their other classes as well. Master and Walton (2013) state that identification with a problem-solving group such as "the puzzle group" increased student task persistence in their study even if the student never met any of the members of their group. This has implications for persistence in the face of hardship outside the classroom.