Are Girls Resilient to Pressure for Gender-Conformity? The Association between Gender-Conformity Pressure and Academic Self-Efficacy.

• In Event: 196 - Regular Session. Education and Gender: Gendered Interactions and Intersections in Schools

Abstract

Since the nineties, it has become clear that in most western industrialized countries girls tend to outperform boys on educational parameters. Masculinities theory proposes that cultural conventions concerning typical masculinity and femininity inform gendered study cultures, which lead to the observed gender-differential achievement patterns. When investigated in a qualitative fashion, the results often are group-based and lack generalizability. When researched in a quantitative fashion, however, gender is frequently reduced to boy-girl differences. In this study, we aim to solve these issues by adopting a thorough gender-focus while using a quantitative method. We do this by investigating the influence of gendered peer cultures on an individual level by employing the concept of pressure for gender conformity. Hence, the central research focus is the gender differential impact of pressure for gender conformity on educational parameters, more specifically academic self-efficacy. We examine these inter- and intrasexual differences in a sample of 6380 7th grade students in Flanders (the northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). The data have been collected at the start and the end of the school year 2012-2013. Results from multilevel regression analysis of two time-points show that boys’ academic self-efficacy is lower when experiencing more pressure for gender conformity. Girls’ academic self-efficacy, however, does not tend to decline when experiencing similar levels of pressure. Moreover, this impact of pressure for gender conformity only appears in the course of the first year of secondary education. The results are discussed in light of gendered expectations for boys and girls.

Authors

• Wendelien Vantieghem, Ghent University

• Mieke Van Houtte, Ghent University