Children’s and Young Adults’ Assessments of Science Resource Inequalities in High and Low Effort Contexts

• In Event: Fairness and Inequality

Abstract

Children (Bian et al., 2017; Cvencek et al., 2011) and adults (Bian et al., 2018) hold pro-boy biases in domains related to brilliance and STEM. We propose that children and adults may thus endorse gender-related resource inequalities regarding science supplies. For example, an expectation that boys are more gifted at science than are girls may translate into support for allocations that give boys more science resources than girls. While resource allocation has been investigated regarding gendered-associated toys such as dolls and trucks (Conry-Murray, 2015), no research that we know of has examined how children and adults evaluate inequalities that exist regarding science supplies between boys and girls. Nor has this judgment been examined when science related effort has been considered. This was the aim of the present study.

Participants (N = 144; 5- to 6-year-olds, 9- to 11-year-olds, young adults) witnessed science resource inequalities between groups of boys and girls. One group (boys or girls) had six boxes of science supplies (advantaged) while another group (boys or girls) had only one box of science supplies (disadvantaged). The effort that each group displayed regarding working on science projects was manipulated such that participants witnessed high effort groups that were advantaged or disadvantaged and low effort groups that were advantaged or disadvantaged; for both boys and girls. Participants evaluated the acceptability of the science resource inequality, allocated seven boxes of science supplies between the two groups, and provided reasoning for their responses.

Evaluations. When girls were advantaged (and boys were disadvantaged), all age groups viewed girls having more boxes of science supplies than boys as being more okay when girls were the high effort, compared to low effort, group (p’s < .01) (see Figure 1). In contrast, when boys were advantaged (and girls were disadvantaged), 5- to 6-year-olds and young adults viewed the inequality as okay whether boys displayed high or low effort (p’s > .05). Further, 5- to 6-year-olds endorsed low effort boys as the advantaged group more than 9- to 11-year-olds and young adults (p’s < .01). Thus, younger children (e.g., 5- to 6-year-olds) viewed STEM resource inequalities as being more okay when low effort boys were advantaged than when low effort girls were advantaged (p < .01).

Resource allocations. Participants’ resource allocations were more heavily influenced by advantaged status when allocating resources to high effort boys than to high effort girls (see Figure 2). That is, allocations to high effort girls did not differ based on whether they were advantaged or disadvantaged (p > .05). In contrast, participants gave more boxes of science supplies to high effort boys when boys were disadvantaged than advantaged (p < .001). Participants’ reasoning reflected merit and equality depending on the condition and scenario.

Together, these results reveal that children’s and young adults’ evaluations and allocations in STEM inequality contexts reflect subtle gender biases that favor boys when evaluating resource inequalities and their perceived effort at science projects. Gender is an important category group membership influencing the acceptability of science resource inequalities.

Authors

• Riley N. Sims, University of Maryland - College Park
  Presenting Author

• Amanda Rose Burkholder, Furman University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melanie A. Killen, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author