Gender Stereotyping and Affective Attitudes Towards Science in Chinese Secondary School Students

TY - JOUR

T1 - Gender Stereotyping and Affective Attitudes Towards Science in Chinese Secondary School Students

AU - Liu, Mingxin

AU - Hu, Weiping

AU - Adey, Philip

PY - 2010/2

Y1 - 2010/2

N2 - This study explores explicit and implicit gender-science stereotypes and affective attitudes towards science in a sample of Chinese secondary school students. The results showed that (1) gender-science stereotyping was more and more apparent as the specialization of science subjects progresses through secondary school, becoming stronger from the 10th grade; girls were more inclined to stereotype than boys while this gender difference decreased with increasing grade; (2) girls tend to have an implicit science-unpleasant/humanities-pleasant association from the 8th grade, while boys showed a negative implicit attitude towards science up to the 11th grade. In self-report, girls preferred humanities to science, while boys preferred science to humanities; (3) implicit affective attitude was closely related to implicit stereotype. In particular, implicit affective attitude has a stronger predictive power on stereotype than the other way around, the result of which may have more significance for girls.

AB - This study explores explicit and implicit gender-science stereotypes and affective attitudes towards science in a sample of Chinese secondary school students. The results showed that (1) gender-science stereotyping was more and more apparent as the specialization of science subjects progresses through secondary school, becoming stronger from the 10th grade; girls were more inclined to stereotype than boys while this gender difference decreased with increasing grade; (2) girls tend to have an implicit science-unpleasant/humanities-pleasant association from the 8th grade, while boys showed a negative implicit attitude towards science up to the 11th grade. In self-report, girls preferred humanities to science, while boys preferred science to humanities; (3) implicit affective attitude was closely related to implicit stereotype. In particular, implicit affective attitude has a stronger predictive power on stereotype than the other way around, the result of which may have more significance for girls.

U2 - 10.1080/09500690802595847

DO - 10.1080/09500690802595847

M3 - Article

SN - 1464-5289

VL - 32

SP - 379

EP - 395

JO - International Journal of Science Education

JF - International Journal of Science Education

IS - 3

ER -