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Gendered Expectations: Examining How Peers Shape Female Students' Intent to Pursue STEM Fields

Building on prior psychological and sociological research on the power of local environments to shape gendered outcomes in STEM fields, this study focuses on the critical stage of adolescence to explore the potential negative impact of exposure to exclusionary messages from peers within girls'...

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Autores principales: Riegle-Crumb, Catherine, Morton, Karisma
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5350122/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28360868
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00329
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author Riegle-Crumb, Catherine
Morton, Karisma
author_facet Riegle-Crumb, Catherine
Morton, Karisma
author_sort Riegle-Crumb, Catherine
collection PubMed
description Building on prior psychological and sociological research on the power of local environments to shape gendered outcomes in STEM fields, this study focuses on the critical stage of adolescence to explore the potential negative impact of exposure to exclusionary messages from peers within girls' science classrooms, as well as the positive potential impact of inclusionary messages. Specifically, utilizing longitudinal data from a diverse sample of adolescent youth, analyses examine how the presence of biased male peers, as well as confident female peers, shape girls' subsequent intentions to pursue different STEM fields, focusing specifically on intentions to pursue the male-dominated fields of computer science and engineering, as well as more gender equitable fields. Results reveal that exposure to a higher percentage of 8th grade male peers in the classroom who endorsed explicit gender/STEM stereotypes significantly and negatively predicted girls' later intentions to pursue a computer science/engineering (CS/E) major. Yet results also reveal that exposure to a higher percentage of confident female peers in the science classroom positively predicted such intentions. These results were specific to CS/E majors, suggesting that peers are an important source of messages regarding whether or not girls should pursue non-traditional STEM fields. This study calls attention to the importance of examining both positive and negative sources of influence within the local contexts where young people live and learn. Limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.
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spelling pubmed-53501222017-03-30 Gendered Expectations: Examining How Peers Shape Female Students' Intent to Pursue STEM Fields Riegle-Crumb, Catherine Morton, Karisma Front Psychol Psychology Building on prior psychological and sociological research on the power of local environments to shape gendered outcomes in STEM fields, this study focuses on the critical stage of adolescence to explore the potential negative impact of exposure to exclusionary messages from peers within girls' science classrooms, as well as the positive potential impact of inclusionary messages. Specifically, utilizing longitudinal data from a diverse sample of adolescent youth, analyses examine how the presence of biased male peers, as well as confident female peers, shape girls' subsequent intentions to pursue different STEM fields, focusing specifically on intentions to pursue the male-dominated fields of computer science and engineering, as well as more gender equitable fields. Results reveal that exposure to a higher percentage of 8th grade male peers in the classroom who endorsed explicit gender/STEM stereotypes significantly and negatively predicted girls' later intentions to pursue a computer science/engineering (CS/E) major. Yet results also reveal that exposure to a higher percentage of confident female peers in the science classroom positively predicted such intentions. These results were specific to CS/E majors, suggesting that peers are an important source of messages regarding whether or not girls should pursue non-traditional STEM fields. This study calls attention to the importance of examining both positive and negative sources of influence within the local contexts where young people live and learn. Limitations and directions for future research are also discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-03-15 /pmc/articles/PMC5350122/ /pubmed/28360868 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00329 Text en Copyright © 2017 Riegle-Crumb and Morton. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Riegle-Crumb, Catherine
Morton, Karisma
Gendered Expectations: Examining How Peers Shape Female Students' Intent to Pursue STEM Fields
title Gendered Expectations: Examining How Peers Shape Female Students' Intent to Pursue STEM Fields
title_full Gendered Expectations: Examining How Peers Shape Female Students' Intent to Pursue STEM Fields
title_fullStr Gendered Expectations: Examining How Peers Shape Female Students' Intent to Pursue STEM Fields
title_full_unstemmed Gendered Expectations: Examining How Peers Shape Female Students' Intent to Pursue STEM Fields
title_short Gendered Expectations: Examining How Peers Shape Female Students' Intent to Pursue STEM Fields
title_sort gendered expectations: examining how peers shape female students' intent to pursue stem fields
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5350122/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28360868
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00329
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