Iacoviello Vincenzo, Valsecchi Giulia, Vétois Matthieu, Falomir-Pichastor Juan M
FPSE, Université de Genève, Uni Mail, Boulevard du Pont d'Arve 40, 1205 Geneva, Switzerland.
Soc Psychol Educ. 2024;27(3):1043-1063. doi: 10.1007/s11218-024-09909-z. Epub 2024 Apr 4.
Despite some progress towards gender equality in Western societies, traditional gender norms still shape career choices, perpetuating a gender gap where girls are more likely to pursue traditionally feminine fields like healthcare, elementary education, and domestic roles (HEED), while boys are drawn to masculine domains such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This research investigates whether, and under which conditions, the perception that gender norms are progressively changing towards less gender dichotomy can reduce this gender gap in academic fields. We recruited a sample of 642 high-school students (394 women and 248 men), and experimentally manipulated both the salience of changes in gender norm (stability vs change) and participants' gender prototypicality. The main dependent variable was participants' interest in stereotypically feminine (HEED) and masculine (STEM) academic fields. The results indicated a slight decrease in the gender gap for stereotypically feminine fields (HEED) among participants who saw themselves as typical members of their gender group, but no significant change was observed for stereotypically masculine fields (STEM). These findings suggest that shifting perceptions of gender norms may have a limited effect on modifying traditional educational and career choices, underscoring the resilience of entrenched gender stereotypes.
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11218-024-09909-z.
尽管西方社会在性别平等方面取得了一些进展，但传统的性别规范仍然影响着职业选择，使性别差距持续存在，女孩更有可能追求医疗保健、基础教育和家庭角色等传统女性领域（HEED），而男孩则倾向于科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）等男性主导的领域。本研究调查了性别规范正逐渐朝着减少性别二分法转变的认知是否以及在何种条件下能够缩小学术领域的性别差距。我们招募了642名高中生样本（394名女生和248名男生），并通过实验操纵了性别规范变化的显著性（稳定性与变化）以及参与者的性别典型性。主要因变量是参与者对传统女性（HEED）和男性（STEM）学术领域的兴趣。结果表明，在将自己视为所属性别群体典型成员的参与者中，传统女性领域（HEED）的性别差距略有缩小，但传统男性领域（STEM）未观察到显著变化。这些发现表明，对性别规范的认知转变可能对改变传统教育和职业选择的影响有限，凸显了根深蒂固的性别刻板印象的韧性。
在线版本包含可在10.1007/s11218-024-09909-z获取的补充材料。
