Gender Differences and Professional Identities in Health and Engineering

Abstract

The objective of this study was to compare the professional identity perceptions among undergraduate students enrolled in predominantly female and male courses. The research method is cross-sectional and the sample consisted of 502 undergraduate students in the fields of health and engineering. A questionnaire with the Scale of Professional Self and Hetero-Perception (EAHP) was used to collect the data and descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and structural equations modeling were used as analysis techniques. According to the students from the two areas, the dimensions that best describe their professions are dynamism; technicity; effort; and ethics, while in the health field, the dimension that received the lowest average score was recognition, indicating that the professionals working in this field resent the lack of respect, admiration, and prestige in society, despite perceiving themselves as honest, honored, productive, and hardworking. Also, the average hetero-perception scores were lower for the health students and the difference between self and hetero-perception was less significant among the engineering students. The results confirm that the professional identities include gender-related attributes, leading to the conclusion that health professions remain vulnerable to gender domination relations.

Identidade profissional de residentes médicos / Professional identity of medical residents

“…Os residentes médicos tenderam a ter uma autopercepção positiva em relação aos itens do construto, revelando o entendimento de que a profissão é Respeita e Admirada. No entanto, resultado diferente foi obtido por Vieira et al (2017), quando fizeram uso da EAHP com estudantes de cursos de enfermagem, nutrição, biomedicina e fisioterapia, e obtiveram na autopercepção a média de 2,90, e na heteropercepção 2,58, indicando a presença de sofrimento moral pela falta de reconhecimento social e valorização destas profissões.…”

Development and Validation of an Unethical Professional Behavior Tendencies Scale for Student Teachers

“…Ethical behaviors depend mainly on cognitive and emotional processes (Fumagalli et al, 2010). Most of the students have developed distinct cognition and emotion of the profession when they make professional choices, and the stereotype of the teacher is formed in the education stage (Vieira et al, 2017).…”

“…Ethical behaviors depend mainly on cognitive and emotional processes ( Fumagalli et al, 2010 ). Most of the students have developed distinct cognition and emotion of the profession when they make professional choices, and the stereotype of the teacher is formed in the education stage ( Vieira et al, 2017 ). Professional identity, as special cognition and emotion of practitioners for the profession, has a great influence on professional behaviors ( Richter et al, 2021 ).…”

Representations of gender in executive offices

“…In assuming managerial positions in organizations, for example, women can learn to perform a masculine performance (Butler, 2016) by acquiring behaviors considered different from what was socially established as female. Women then seek to performatically express an identity of the dominant gender in order to attempt to establish a certain gender equality in an environment that is guided by the male domain (Anderson & Klofstad, 2012;Vieira, Carrieri, Monteiro, & Roquete, 2017;Stoet & Geary, 2018).…”