Sunday, May 3, 2015

Stereotypes in education. Part 1. Just people in glasses or nerds!



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The other day I had a taxi ride. As you all know, whenever you go from or to university taxi drivers start asking about the university and everything concerning it. And of course this one wasn’t an exception. But this time I was pretty much surprised: “You know, the friend of mine works there and every time I go to visit him I always see the students wearing glasses. I wouldn’t say 100%, but 95% of students definitely do! This means that they are all “nerds (botany)”! I don’t like them because of the way they drive! They are too slow and scared to drive!
Do people really think that wearing glasses has a power to turn you into a nerd? Are all people smart and intelligent if they wear glasses? In order to answer these questions I conducted an online survey among my friends, online “friends”, relatives and acquaintances. Each of them got the survey separately. All in all 66 people (aged 14-55) were sent the questions and I received almost 40 answers. First, I asked the question “What is your first impression of a person wearing glasses?” Generally, the vast majority of people answered that they see a person, who has problems with eyesight. Some told they think of an intelligent, smart and important person. Some even managed to give such common professions as a teacher, student, scientist and professor. While others showed a slight negative attitude towards such people, characterizing them as nerds, who are annoying, tiresome (nudnyi) and boring.

And then I asked these people to write three words that are associated with “a nerd”. In their responses together with such associated objects: brains, books, science, glasses, studies and aspiration, there were a lot of adjectives. Here I tried to place them from positive to negative:


The variety of answers made the survey fun, these participants taught upon not only the traits of nerds, but also their habits and behavior: “They look different”, “They don’t like parties and they hang over only in their own circles”, “They only know their own business”. But you cannot imagine how “creative” can a person be, when they put such words together: “ Good analytic, lettered (nachitannyi), with high intellect and simply perisher (zanuda) “, “ interesting, politician and coward”, “ professor, old-fashioned and gay”. So, how many people, so many minds! How poor is you eyesight and how do you think it is connected to your intelligence?

4 comments:

  1. haha really funny. Personally for me, I do believe (dunno why though) that people with glasses look smarter. And from my experience, the majority of people around me wearing glasses on a regular basis are smart indeed) I guess it's connected with a notion that people with bad eyesight were necesseraly reading a lot of books so that their eyesight got deteriorated.
    And what is your opinion, Zhuldyz? Does it get on your nerves when people think you are nerdy?

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    1. Lyazat, I think my intelligence is not connected to my eyesight. And where does your assumption on people's thoughts about me come from? )))

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  2. Interesting. Yes, earlier people were may have been right to associate bad sight with a person who reads a lot. But nowadays, people who sit in front of the computers or spend hours staring at their smartphones also have bad eyesight. So I guess the assumption about the intelligence of the person and his eyeglasses are not actual anymore )

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    1. Gulnur, I do agree with you... interestingly, most people who I asked did not consider the case with computer or any gadgets...

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