Stereotype threat

"There’s an interesting phenomenon called the stereotype threat, or, in other words, the threat of stereotypes about one’s capacity to succeed at something: when the belief that people like you (African-Americans, women, etc) are worse at a particular task than the comparison group (whites, men, etc) is made prominent, you perform worse at that task." In other words, if you think that you're a part of the wrong sort, you'll act accordingly and doom yourself to failure.

The article gives nice facts and figures, and even draws on Foucault. From the P.A.P. blog.