The masculine image of careers in science and technology: fact or fantasy? 1

Abstract

Gender has been linked to disparity in the uptake and experience of education, both within schools and in further and higher education. Despite an overall rise in the proportion of female undergraduates, the physical sciences and technological courses have failed to attract increased numbers of female applicants. The career aspirations of school pupils were investigated to identify disparities between the aspirations of males and females, and their schematic representations of social and technical roles. One hundred and six school pupils, aged 16–18, were presented with a 34‐item Q‐sample relating to career choice. The cards were sorted twice, once from the perspective of a hypothetical male or female sixth year school pupil who had decided to enter a technically or a socially oriented career, and once from their own perspective. Analysis was undertaken in two stages utilising Q‐methodology and discriminant function analysis. Discriminant function analysis of the aspiration data failed to discriminate between the career aspirations of male and female school pupils. Further analysis between male and female pupils' perceptions of the ‘technical’ and ‘social’ roles, derived from the Q‐factor analysis, produced two discriminant functions. Male and female group means veered in the ‘expected’ direction; however they were in fact closer to each other than to the stereotypical ‘technical’ or ‘social’ group means. The authors suggest that it is not technology per se that females find off‐putting but their expectations of the work place.

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