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Is School Feminine? Implicit Gender Stereotyping of School as a Predictor of Academic Achievement

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Abstract

One cause proposed for boys’ relatively lower academic achievement is a “feminisation” of schools that might result in a lack of fit between boys’ self-concept and academic engagement. Research so far has investigated math-male and language-female stereotypes, but no school-female stereotypes. Our study tested for implicit gender stereotyping of school and its impact on boys’ achievement in N = 122 ninth-graders from a large city in Western Germany using the Go/No-go Association Task (GNAT). Gender role self-concept and grades in math (representing an academic domain stereotyped as male) and German (domain stereotyped as female) were assessed using written questionnaires. It was found that, overall, students associated school more strongly with female than with male, and that this association of school with female was related to boys’ academic achievement. The more strongly boys associated school with female and the more they ascribed negative masculine traits to themselves, the lower their grades in German were. Boys’ academic achievement in math was unrelated to the extent to which they perceived school as feminine and themselves as masculine. Girls’ grades in both German and math were unrelated to their gender stereotyping of school. These findings emphasize the importance of fit between a student’s gender, gender role self-concept and gender stereotyping of school for academic achievement. Strategies to improve this fit are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195, Berlin, Germany

    Anke Heyder & Ursula Kessels

Authors
  1. Anke Heyder
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  2. Ursula Kessels
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Correspondence to Anke Heyder.

Additional information

The current research was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) allocated to the second author (KE1412-2-1).

Appendix

Appendix

English items of the Extended Personality Questionnaire representing socially desirable and undesirable masculinity and their German translation (Runge et al. 1981)

Scale

English

German

M+

independent

active

decisive

never gives up

self-confident

feels superior

stands up under pressure

völlig unabhängig

sehr aktiv

fälle leicht Entscheidungen

gebe nie leicht auf

sehr selbstsicher

fühle mich überlegen

kann Druck gut standhalten

M−

aggressive

boastful

arrogant

greedy

dictatorial

cynical

unprincipled

hostile

egotistical

sehr aggressiv

sehr prahlerisch

sehr überheblich

sehr gierig

sehr diktatorisch

sehr zynisch

halte mich an keine Grundsätze

sehr feindselig

nur auf mich selbst bedacht

  1. Note M+ socially desirable masculinity. M− socially undesirable masculinity

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Heyder, A., Kessels, U. Is School Feminine? Implicit Gender Stereotyping of School as a Predictor of Academic Achievement. Sex Roles 69, 605–617 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-013-0309-9

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