Low expectations may be understood as a subtle yet pervasive form of psychological and organisational harm that can erode human motivation, dignity, agency, and well-being. This phenomenon can manifest across educational institutions, workplaces, households, and the public sector, where persistently low expectations may contribute to diminished engagement, reduced aspirations, and the weakening of both individual and collective potential. Importantly, low expectations operate not only at the level of individuals and groups, but can also be extended to nations and national populations, including countries that are characterised as developing or underdeveloped. At broader social, economic, and political levels, such expectations may shape how societies are perceived, how their capacities are evaluated, and what opportunities and resources are made available to them.
We often talk about discrimination in terms of gender, ethnicity, religion, language, or disability. At the same time, there is another mechanism that receives far less attention, despite the profound consequences it can have for people’s life chances: low expectations.
Research has long shown that our expectations can influence people’s performance, motivation, and development. The Pygmalion effect describes how positive and high expectations can contribute to improved performance, while the Golem effect points to how low expectations can constrain people’s opportunities to develop and reach their potential. Expectations are, of course, not the only factors behind success or failure, but they can influence what opportunities people are given, what demands are placed upon them, and the perceptions they develop of themselves.
Despite this knowledge, society continues to signal to some people that they are not expected to succeed. Low expectations rarely emerge in a vacuum. They can interact with class, ethnicity, gender, language, and disability, thereby reinforcing existing inequalities. What makes low expectations particularly problematic is that they are often difficult to detect. They are not always expressed through explicit prejudice or intentional discrimination, but through small everyday actions, comments, and decisions.
When Someone Believes in You
To make this argument more personal, I would like to share an experience from my own childhood.
My mother was a great source of support throughout my schooling. In the beginning, I struggled and was not particularly successful at school. I was sometimes hit by a teacher and teased by students who performed better than I did. It hurt, both psychologically and physically. During those years, I had very little objective reason to believe that I would do particularly well in school.
But my mother saw something different.
She and my grandmother used to tell me that I had been born with part of the amniotic membrane still covering my head – what is called kirtas in Amharic and is sometimes referred to in Swedish as a segerhuva. In our cultural imagination, this was regarded as a special sign, almost a gift from God, indicating that the child was chosen and would succeed in life.
Whenever I encountered difficulties, my mother would say: “You are chosen. The kirtas is a sign that you will succeed.”
It may sound like a simple story, perhaps even superstition. But for me, it acquired a deeper meaning. I often felt weak – both physically and intellectually – yet my mother continued to speak of me as someone destined to accomplish something significant. She had a much brighter image of my future than I had of myself.
Eventually, I began to believe what she told me.
Even today, I can hear her voice when I encounter setbacks, both in academia and in my private life. Many years ago, some of my siblings questioned the meaning of my kirtas and suggested that it might instead be explained by the fact that I had been born prematurely. My mother firmly rejected that explanation.
I chose to believe my mother, regardless of what medical researchers might say.
The important point here is not whether the amniotic membrane itself had any particular significance. Scientifically, of course, it did not. But the story gave me something else: an expectation that I could succeed. It gave me the motivation to keep going when life was difficult. Perhaps, then, it was not the membrane itself that made the difference, but the high expectations associated with the story surrounding it.
When Others Begin to Define Who You Are
The other day, a young woman told me how her parents constantly compared her with her brother. Through repeated comparisons and demeaning comments, she developed a sense that she was never quite good enough.
This is more than a story about a complicated family relationship. It is also about how people learn from childhood to see themselves through the eyes of others. When a child is constantly told that someone else is better, smarter, or more successful, there is a risk that the child will eventually adopt the same judgement about themselves.
In a similar way, high expectations can become a form of social capital. When a teacher, parent, or other significant adult communicates, “I believe you can do this,” it does not automatically create success – but it can create motivation, perseverance, and a willingness to try again.
That is why expectations matter.
School Is Not a Neutral Place
The same pattern can be found in schools. Many students describe teachers who, consciously or unconsciously, signal that they will not succeed in education. Students report being discouraged from pursuing higher education or ambitious career choices because of their family background, language, gender, or disability.
Often, this does not occur through explicit prejudice. It can be much more subtle:
“Maybe that isn’t really for you.”
“Have you considered something easier?”
“Perhaps you should be more realistic.”
Such comments may appear well intentioned. But when they are repeated over time, they can have a powerful normative effect. They communicate more than something about a particular educational programme or career choice. They can communicate a more fundamental message:
“You are not the kind of person who belongs there.”
This is where low expectations can become a form of invisible exclusion.
Swedish as a Second Language – A Question of Expectations
Similar questions arise in discussions about Swedish as a second language. I have encountered students who have felt singled out or humiliated when placed in such instruction, sometimes on grounds that they or their parents have found difficult to understand or accept. This may relate to the student’s linguistic background, family circumstances, or other assessments made by the school.
This issue has long been the subject of discussion and, at times, conflict among students, parents, schools, and researchers.
Here, we need to ask an uncomfortable but important question:
What assumptions do we hold about a student’s abilities?
What assumptions are made about what a student with another first language can achieve? What expectations exist regarding the student’s academic development? And how do these assumptions affect assessments of the student’s opportunities to succeed in mainstream education?
This is not to claim that all students have the same needs or that special support is never necessary. Rather, it is about ensuring that educational decisions are based on the student’s actual needs and circumstances, rather than assumptions about what a student from a particular background is presumed to be capable or incapable of achieving.
The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
The problem with low expectations is that they can become self-fulfilling.
When a person is constantly met with doubt, they may begin to doubt themselves. When they are given fewer challenges, their opportunities to develop their abilities may diminish. When they are not encouraged to pursue further education, they may never apply. And when they repeatedly hear that they do not belong in a particular place, they may eventually stop trying to get there.
In this way, low expectations can produce precisely the outcome they initially anticipated.
This is particularly problematic because society may then interpret the outcome as evidence that the original expectations were correct.
“We knew she wouldn’t be able to do it.”
But did we really know?
Or did our expectations help create some of the conditions that led to the outcome?
Raising Expectations Without Lowering Standards
We therefore need to talk more about low expectations as a mechanism contributing to discrimination and inequality. This does not mean that low expectations should replace other forms of discrimination as an analytical category. Rather, we need to make visible another process through which inequality is created and reproduced.
Treating people with respect does not mean lowering expectations of them. Quite the opposite.
High expectations mean believing that people can develop – while simultaneously providing them with the resources, support, and opportunities they need to succeed.
It is not enough to tell a student, “You can do it.” Schools must also create the conditions that enable the student to do so. High expectations without support can become empty rhetoric. But high expectations combined with pedagogical support, clear goals, and genuine opportunities can alter people’s educational trajectories.
My mother’s story about kirtas may not have been scientific. But it taught me something that I still carry with me: sometimes another person’s belief in you can come before your own belief in yourself.
Perhaps this is also one of the most important purposes of education – to see possibilities in people before they have learned to see those possibilities in themselves.
No one should be limited by other people’s assumptions about what they can or cannot become. It is time to recognise low expectations for what they can be: an invisible wall that limits people’s opportunities, participation, and hope for the future. With regard to nations, international politics, trade, and diplomatic relations, we can also observe how powerful states sometimes portray emerging or less economically powerful nations as incapable of succeeding or developing on their own terms. Such representations may be expressed through dismissive, degrading, or abusive language, including statements by political leaders that characterise African and other countries in highly derogatory ways.
These practices should not be understood merely as individual expressions of prejudice or political rhetoric. When such representations are repeated systematically by powerful political actors and institutions, they can contribute to a broader pattern of symbolic and structural abuse. They may reinforce hierarchies between nations, undermine the perceived legitimacy and agency of emerging countries, and influence how their economies, institutions, and populations are viewed internationally.
From this perspective, low expectations can operate at the level of international relations. Persistent portrayals of emerging nations as incapable, dependent, or destined to fail may contribute to an international environment in which their capacity for autonomous development is systematically underestimated. In this sense, the production and reproduction of low expectations can become part of a broader political agenda that constrains agency, reinforces dependency, and discourages the pursuit of independent economic, political, and diplomatic pathways.
And perhaps the most important question we can therefore ask is not only what do we expect from people? but also:
Who are we enabling people to believe they can become?
Professor Girma Berhanu teaches in the Department of Education and Special Education at Gothenburg University, Gutenberg. He can be reached at girma.berhanu@ped.gu.se
Editor’s Note: Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
__
Join our Telegram Channel: t.me/borkena
Like borkena on Facebook
To submit a press release, send the submission to info@borkena.com
Add your business to Ethiopian Business Listing / Ethiopian Business Directory
Join the conversation. Follow us on X (formerly Twitter) @zborkena to get the latest Ethiopian news updates regularly.