• Open Access

Endorsement of gender stereotypes affects high school students’ science identity

Silvia Galano, Antonella Liccardo, Anna Lisa Amodeo, Marianna Crispino, Oreste Tarallo, and Italo Testa
Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 19, 010120 – Published 22 March 2023

Abstract

We investigated how the endorsement of gender stereotypes affects disciplinary identity across three different science-technology-engineering-mathematics (STEM) areas: physics, biology, and chemistry, and whether such relationship is mediated by self-concept constructs, such as self-efficacy and perceived academic control. Building on the ambivalent sexism theory and masculine ideology paradigm, we focused on gender stereotypes based on hostile and benevolent sexism and on male role norms. A sample of 1406 Italian high school students (girls=742) was involved in the study. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothesized relationships. Results show that the adherence to male role norms and the rejection of hostile sexism have a significant effect on the development of a disciplinary identity in the three targeted STEM domains. However, such an effect is fully mediated by self-efficacy and perceived academic control. Moreover, the identity in the three addressed STEM domains is differently affected by the endorsement of stereotypes, with physics and biology being more largely affected than chemistry. More importantly, the endorsement of hostile sexism stereotypes significantly decreases the perceived self-efficacy, while higher levels of perceived academic control are predicted by higher levels of endorsement of male role norms, for both girls and boys. Our findings suggest that to reduce the perception of femininity as incongruent with STEM identification, it would be necessary to deconstruct the masculine view of self-efficacy and academic control.

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  • Received 15 September 2022
  • Accepted 12 January 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.19.010120

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Physics Education Research

Authors & Affiliations

Silvia Galano1, Antonella Liccardo1, Anna Lisa Amodeo2, Marianna Crispino3, Oreste Tarallo4, and Italo Testa1,*

  • 1Department of Physics “E. Pancini”, University Federico II, 80126, Naples, Italy
  • 2Department of Humanities, University Federico II, 80133, Naples, Italy
  • 3Department of Biology, University Federico II, 80126, Naples, Italy
  • 4Department of Chemical Sciences, University Federico II, 80126, Naples, Italy

  • *italo.testa@unina.it

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Vol. 19, Iss. 1 — January - June 2023

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