EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT ATTITUDES AMONG STUDENTS TOWARDS WOMEN AND MEN IN MALE- AND FEMALE-DOMINATED FIELDS OF WORK AND STUDY

Sammanfattning: Abstract Gender inequality is considered an issue in many countries and gender roles could play an important role in this. Specifically, gender stereotypes suggest that STEM (i.e., science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is more seen as “male” and HEED (i.e., health care, elementary education, domestic functions) is more seen as “female”. However, research that examines these attitudes between students who study in the STEM or HEED field is lacking. Moreover, explicit and implicit attitudes have not been compared much between these two groups. Therefore, this study examines if there is a difference between students from STEM and HEED fields in their attitudes when it comes to males’ and females’ ability and suitability to study and work within in the STEM and HEED field. Fifty-tree students completed a self-report questionnaire on their attitudes, and completed an Implicit Association Task (IAT). Results showed no differences in implicit or HEED-is-female attitudes, but STEM field students had weaker STEM-is-male attitudes than HEED field students. Also, men held stronger STEM-is-male attitudes, but several analyses were inconclusive, likely because of the small number of HEED students. Overall, participants did not seem to hold gender prejudices relating to field of study.             Keywords: implicit attitudes, explicit attitudes, gender stereotypes, STEM, HEED