title: Why don't girls choose technological studies? Adolescents' stereotypes and attitudes towards studies related to medicine or engineering.
abstract: Gender differences in choice of studies emerge already in adolescence. Two studies with adolescents are presented, the goal of which is to explore the influence of gender by assessing males and females who choose studies related to Medicine or Engineering. Study 1, correlational (N = 330, mean age 15.9, 56.7% girls), shows that girls who choose technology are more poorly appraised than girls who choose other studies. Study 2 (N = 130; mean age 16.77, 56.2% girls), experimental, measures implicit attitudes (using the IAT) towards males and females from Medicine and Engineering. Implicit attitudes are more favorable towards women if they are studying Medicine and towards men if they study Engineering. The results are analyzed with relation to the percentages of boys and girls in the different fields of study.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Psicología Social y de las Organizaciones, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Juan del Rosal 10, 28040 Madrid, Spain. mlopez@psi.uned.es
authors.forename: Mercedes
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: López-Sáez
authors.forename: Susana
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Puertas
authors.forename: Milagros
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sáinz
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001244:Association; D002321:Career Choice; D004501:Education, Medical; D004738:Engineering / Q000193:education*; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006809:Humanities; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D011594:Psychometrics; D012586:Science / Q000193:education; D012659:Semantic Differential / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012925:Social Conformity; D012942:Social Sciences / Q000193:education; D012945:Social Values; D013240:Stereotyping; D013672:Technology / Q000193:education