Abstract
Despite progress, gender gaps persist in mathematical and language-related fields, and gender stereotypes likely play a role. The current study examines the relations between parents’ gender-related beliefs and their adolescent child’s motivation and career aspirations through a survey of 172 parent-child dyads. Parents reported their gendered beliefs about ability in mathematics and language arts, as well as their prescriptive gender role beliefs. Students reported their expectancies and values in these two domains, as well as their career aspirations The results of path models suggested that parents’ ability stereotypes about language boosted girls’ motivation for language arts, thereby nudging them away from STEM pathways. Girls’ career aspirations stemmed not only from their valuation of the corresponding domain, but also from their valuation of competing domains. Such findings highlight the need to consider multiple domains simultaneously in order to better capture the complexity of girls’ career decisions. For boys, parents’ language ability stereotypes were directly related to mathematical career aspirations. These results suggest that stereotypes that language arts is not for boys push them instead toward mathematics. Our study also highlighted the unique role of parental beliefs in traditional gender roles for boys’ motivation and career aspirations. Specifically, parents’ gender role stereotypes directly related to less interest in language arts only among boys. This highlights that research into gender gaps in female-dominated fields should consider stereotypes related to appropriate behavior and social roles for boys.
Highlights
Despite efforts to reduce gender gaps in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, women remain underrepresented in STEM careers (Wang et al, 2013; Simon et al, 2016)
Our research showed that parents, as socializers who hold a variety of gender stereotypical beliefs, may have a key role especially at the end of high school, a critical period during which students must choose between multiple domains as they enter either higher education or the workforce
In examining parent-student dyads, our research suggested that parents, as important socializers, could transmit stereotypes that predict students’ motivation and career aspirations
Summary
Despite efforts to reduce gender gaps in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, women remain underrepresented in STEM careers (Wang et al, 2013; Simon et al, 2016). Gender differences in career aspirations are certainly complex and influenced by diverse factors, it is well-established that social factors play a key role (Hyde, 2014; Olsson and Martiny, 2018; Froehlich et al, 2020). In accordance with such results, the social cognitive perspective (Bandura, 1977) proposes that gendered interests and aspirations are largely rooted in the social context. Parents, as important socializers, play a crucial role in students’ education and development (Šimunovicand Babarovic, 2020) Their socializing role may manifest through their attitudes and cultural values, such as those reflected by their gender stereotypical beliefs (Tomasetto et al, 2015). Subtle messages from parents such as “it’s tough for women in science” or “you’ll be the only boy in your literature program” could have large downstream consequences for students’ career decision-making
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