Abstract
Gendered occupational and educational choices have often been traced back to gender differences in students’ domain-specific ability self-concept and intrinsic motivation. This study explored the role of believing in an “innate” math or language arts ability (i.e., having a fixed mindset) for gender differences in students’ ability self-concept and intrinsic motivation in 423 female (49%) and 447 male (51%) tenth graders from Germany (age M = 16.09 years, SD = 0.68, range: 14–18 years). In line with math-male stereotypes, believing in “innate” math ability was associated with lower ability self-concept and intrinsic motivation in female but not male students. In language arts, students’ mindsets were unrelated to their motivation. The results suggest that a fixed mindset presents an additional burden for female students in math, but not for male or female students in language arts.
Highlights
Choosing a career is an important decision to make for adolescents
Prior research and theory suggested that a fixed mindset of math ability may represent an additional burden for female adolescents in math, but findings vary between constructs and measures
In contrast to the findings for female students in math, the analyses suggest that a fixed mindset in language arts is not negatively related to male students’ ability self-concept and the intrinsic motivation, male students are stereotyped as having less “innate” verbal talent (e.g., Steffens and Jelenec 2011)
Summary
Choosing a career is an important decision to make for adolescents. Almost all occupations are open to both women and men, students’ decisions are still strongly influenced by their gender. Technology, engineering, and math (STEM), women make up only 28% of the workforce overall (National Science Board 2018). These gendered choices and the underrepresentation of women in STEM have far-reaching effects at the expense of women. Math-related or STEM-related careers are more prestigious than other careers (Watt et al 2012) and better paid in the US (US Bureau of Labor Statistics 2020) as well as in European countries such
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