Why Do Junior High School Girls Tend Not to Evaluate Themselves as the “Science Type”?: Gender Differentiation Mechanisms in Humanities and Science Self-Concepts

• Published in: THE JAPANESE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH Vol. 90; no. 2; pp. 285 - 297
• Main Author: TANABE, Kazuhiko
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: Japanese Educational Research Association 2023; 一般社団法人 日本教育学会
• Subjects: Academic self-concepts; Gender stereotypes; Humanities and science self-concepts; Junior high school students; Multivariate analysis; ジェンダー・ステレオタイプ; 中学生; 多変量解析; 学業的自己概念; 文理意識
• ISSN: 0387-3161; 2187-5278
• DOI: 10.11555/kyoiku.90.2_285

Japanese higher education has a high proportion of women in academic areas such as humanities and nursing, and a low one in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). As a background to this gender segregation, the relationship between track selection in high school and major selection in higher education has been pointed out. In other words, in high school, boys tend to be more likely to choose science tracks and girls tend to be more likely to choose humanities tracks, and the curriculum tracking between track selection and major selection leads to gender segregation in higher education. On the other hand, some survey results show that at the elementary and junior high school stages, there is already a tendency for self-evaluation as the “science type” for boys and the “humanities type” for girls. In addition, although the proportion of “science type” girls is larger than that of “humanities type” girls at the elementary school stage, the proportion reverses at the junior high school stage. Based on these findings, this paper focuses on the “humanities type” and “science type” self-concepts (humanities and science self-concepts) of junior high school students and examines the mechanism of gender differentiation. This study tests four hypotheses about how the mechanism of gender difference occurs. First, because boys perform well in science-related subjects while girls perform well in humanities-related subjects, boys are more likely to evaluate themselves as the “science type” and girls themselves as the “humanities type.” Second, because boys like science-related subjects while girls like humanities-related subjects, boys are more likely to evaluate themselves as the “science type” and girls themselves as the “humanities type.” Third, if girls believe the stereotype that “boys are better suited to science,” they will be unlikely to evaluate themselves as the “science type.” Fourth, if girls' parents believe the stereotype that “boys are better suited to science,” girls will be unlikely to evaluate themselves as the “science type.” Analysis of a questionnaire survey of Japanese junior high school students showed results partially supporting Hypothesis 1, because self-recognition of scientific ability mediates the effect of gender on the humanities and science self-concepts, but the proportion of meditation is only about 7%. Hypothesis 2 was also partially supported because the preference for science subjects mediates about one-third of the effect of gender on the humanities and science self-concepts. Hypothesis 3 and Hypothesis 4 were both supported because it was confirmed that if girls and their parents believed the stereotype above, girls were less likely to evaluate themselves as the “science type.” The above results show that even before entering high school, girls are unlikely to evaluate themselves as the “science type” due to factors other than their own academic ability. The results of this study suggest the importance of invalidating the gender stereotypes that exist in Japanese society.