Year 3 student career choices: Exploring societal changes in constructions of masculinity and femininity in career choice justifications

Abstract

This article reports on a survey of 332 Year 3 students from 14 Australian schools. We are interested in exploring Year 3 primary school student aspirations and what this data shows us about any societal changes, or not. This study is timely as it reports on contemporary data within an Australian educational context marked by significant investment in improving equitable gendered participation, particularly for girls entering STEM. Drawing on conceptions of masculinities and femininities as social constructions, we report on the participants' desired occupations and explore their justifications for such choices. The top three occupations for boys included careers in professional sports, STEM-related jobs and policing/defence. Girls reported wanting to be teachers, veterinarians or to work in the arts as their top choices. As part of our exploration, we found issues of money and power-traditionally coded masculine-and conceptions of love and care-traditionally coded feminine-ingrained in boys' and girls' justifications for their desired trajectories. Findings are significant for illustrating how traditional constructions of gender are ingrained in career choices in the early years of primary school and how policy agendas to widen participation need to start early in life.

The impact of career expectation on employment anxiety of art students in higher vocational colleges during the COVID-19: A chain mediating role of social support and psychological capital

“…This study explores the influence of career expectations on employment anxiety of vocational art students and its internal mechanism. The results show that the career expectations of vocational art students have a significant positive predictive effect on employment anxiety, that is, the higher the level of career expectations of art students, the higher the degree of employment anxiety caused by this, which is completely consistent with previous research results and validates the first hypothesis of this study ( Scholes and McDonald, 2021 ; Walters et al, 2022 ). In contrast, the human, material, and financial costs that art students need to spend in the process of growth and training are much higher than those of other majors, such as: art specialty training fees, learning equipment purchase fees (cameras, computers, painting tools, etc.…”

‘Girls do this, guys do that’: how first-in-family students negotiate working-class gendered subjectivities during a time of social change

“…However, participants like Corinne did not discuss career choice in terms of wages but spoke about how she felt that depictions of doctors were more likely to be men, and that these depictions were likely to inform the career choices of boys and men. Corinne's and Ella's beliefs align with research which shows that the aspirations and career choices of children and young people are highly influenced by gender (Chambers et al, 2018;Gore et al, 2017;Scholes & McDonald, 2022). Indeed, Gore et al (2017) found in their survey of Australian school students that gender was a stronger predictor of career choice than socioeconomic status.…”

“…Few studies have attempted to determine the degree to which gender stereotypes and gender norms shape educational and occupational choices, especially for those students from non-traditional backgrounds (with the exception of Archer et al, 2020;Piatek-Jimenez et al, 2018;Wyn et al, 2017). When gender is discussed in terms of widening participation, it tends to be in the context of encouraging girls to aspire to the male-dominated field of STEM; we have seen little effort to encourage aspirations in other segregated professions such as traditionally masculine trades for girls or caring professions for boys (Scholes & McDonald, 2022).…”

“…Although there have been societal shifts highlighting a need for increased gender diversity and a breaking down of gender binaries, research on the effects of socially taught behaviour shows how gender norms remain embedded in society, schooling and familial structures (Chambers et al, 2018;Scholes & McDonald, 2022;Stahl et al, 2021). Many may seek to reaffirm the gender identities of past generations, and it remains difficult to extricate oneself from the social, cultural and historical discourses which 'generate universalities, binaries, forums of truth and specific ways of being human' (Davies, 2006, p. 78).…”

“…While the widening participation agenda has led to more people in Australia attending university than ever before, these efforts have not translated into less gender segregation in terms of disciplines of study. Gender norms and societal beliefs regarding appropriate behaviour, reinforced through schooling, remain an important factor in how young people make career choices (Chambers et al, 2018;Scholes & McDonald, 2022). However, within educational research focussed on widening participation, gender plays only a small role.…”