Characteristics expected in fields of higher education and gender stereotypical traits related to academic success: a mirror effect

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to test whether the content of a gender stereotype concerning general academic achievement matched the characteristics deemed to predict success in the fields of higher education dominated by women and men respectively. A sample of 207 undergraduate students rated the extent to which characteristics ascribed to successful female students (compliance) and characteristics ascribed to successful male students (assertiveness, intelligence and effort) were predictive of achievement in various fields of higher education, including female (the humanities at the university, paramedical school and advanced literature curriculum) and male dominated majors (science and technology at the university, engineering school and advanced science curriculum). As expected, participants rated compliance as more predictive of success in the femaledominated fields of higher education, while they considered assertiveness, effort and intelligence as more predictive of success in the male-dominated fields of higher education. Implications of this finding for academic choices and gender system maintenance are discussed.

Untitled

“…In addition to SDLR levels of learners and the type of instruction, Hao (2016) identified gender as a factor that influences academic performance and it was stated that female students tended to have better verbal intelligence, higher agreeableness, stronger self-discipline, and adapted to a school environment more effectively. Similarly, in a study conducted by Verniers and Martinot (2015) these properties of female students were found predictive of success in fields such as social sciences, health, and literature more than science, technology, and engineering fields, while assertiveness and effort properties of male students were found as more predictive of success in the technological and engineering fields. It was also stated by Chen, Yang, and Hsiao (2015) that in the flipped learning environment, gender may be one of the important factors because the use of technology and the perceptions of both male and female learners may affect their achievement.…”

The academic success of boys and girls as an identity issue in gender relations: when the most threatened is not the one expected

“…These findings could also be interpreted in light of studies showing that, despite their higher academic achievement, girls are still discriminated in the school context (Leaper & Brown, 2014). Girls' intelligence is, for instance, considered to be less malleable than that of boys, and the efforts they put into schoolwork is associated with less potential for future success (Verniers & Martinot, 2015a). They are also underrepresented in fields in which success is said to require brilliance (Meyer et al, 2015) or intelligence (Verniers & Martinot, 2015b).…”

When an academic culture based on self-enhancement values undermines female students’ sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and academic choices

“…It is worth noting the more recent approach of Leslie and colleagues (Leslie, Cimpian, Meyer, & Freeland, 2015; that generalizes the deleterious effect of gender stereotypes beyond the STEM versus non-STEM framework. Their findings show that the percentage of women in a field of study may be predicted by the shared beliefs that success in the field requires brilliance, a feature stereotypically associated more with men (Bian, Leslie, Murphy, & Cimpian, 2018;Verniers & Martinot, 2015).…”