Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

You are here

Disability Paper Proposal

smalina's picture

For this paper, I'm interested in exploring the presence of anxiety in the classroom--something many of us have expressed experiencing throughout our lives. In particular, I would like to look into gender, race, and class differences in classroom anxiety, and perhaps gain an understanding of how Bryn Mawr as a primarily women's space might actually ameliorate some symptoms of anxiety in classroom settings (and, in turn, how a co-ed institution might disable those living with an anxiety disorder). I intend to tie this into a number of articles we have already read for class (including the web event written by Anne and a student about stress factors at an institution like Bryn Mawr, and the articles we read more recently about invisible disabilities in academic settings). I have also found a number of studies conducted that have attempted to find correlations between identities and/or classroom environments and anxiety:

1) "The Influence of Classroom Environment on High School Students’ Mathematics Anxiety and Attitudes" by Bret Allen Taylor 

2) "Ethnicity and gender in relation to adaptive functioning, diagnostic status, and treatment outcome in children from an anxiety clinic" by Kimberli R.H. Treadwell, Ellen C. Flannery-Schroeder, and Philip C. Kendall

3) "Gender differences in anxiety disorders and anxiety symptoms in adolescents" by Peer M. Lewinsohn, Ian H. Gotlib, Mark Lewinsohn, John R. Seeley, and Nicholas B. Allen