Own-gender majority and gender stereotype influences in adolescent subject choice

Objectives: Gender stereotypes continue to influence school educational choices. We examined Scottish adolescents’ knowledge and endorsement of school subject gender-stereotypes, and how these related to their choice of hypothetical school projects. Design: Participants completed a scale examining knowledge and endorsement of gender stereotypes associated with common school subjects. They also completed a task in which they were asked to rate how interested they would be in taking hypothetical school subjects, which varied across two within-subjects factors: Project gender (typically male v. typically female) and Gender majority (majority male or female students). Methods: Participants were recruited from a Scottish secondary school (13 – 17 years, N = 361) and completed an online questionnaire measuring knowledge and endorsement of gender stereotypes associated with 22 school subjects, and interest in eight typically male or typically female hypothetical projects presented as having either a male or female majority of students. Results: Adolescents demonstrated gender stereotype knowledge for 21 of the 22 subjects. They rated interest in own-gender majority projects (M = 66.8) higher than projects with an other-gender majority (M = 61.0; p = .003, η= 0.02). and Own-gender typical projects (M = 70.1) higher than other-gender typical projects (M = 57.7; p < .001, η= 0.11); this difference was significantly greater in males than females. Conclusions: We suggest that own-gender peers are a powerful social influence that, along with gender stereotypes, dominates subject choices, particularly in boys. This has important implications regarding interventions to improve gender imbalance in course enrolment.