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Boys are Affected by Their Parents More Than Girls are: Parents’ Utility Value Socialization in Science

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Abstract

Gender differences in parental value socialization of their children’s motivation, achievement, and career aspirations in science were investigated. Direct and indirect modes of parental value socialization were examined by asking parents about their perception of the utility value of science for their children and for themselves. A total of 260 dyads of Korean parents (86.5% mothers) and their 5 or 6th grade children (45.8% girls) participated in the study. Boys aspired STEM-related careers more strongly than did girls despite comparable levels of motivation and achievement in science. Parents’ value beliefs did not predict their daughters’ science motivation and achievement but were highly predictive of those of their sons. Parents’ perception of the utility value of science for their sons, which may have been directly communicated to and imposed on children, predicted their sons’ STEM career aspirations and science achievement. In contrast, parents’ perception of the utility value of science for themselves, which may have been indirectly endorsed and embedded in parental behavior, predicted only their sons’ science achievement. In male-favored domains like STEM, parents alone may be able to socialize their sons on task values, whereas a more diverse range of socializers may be needed to shape and develop girls’ values.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2017S1A5A2A03068451). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the view of the funding agencies. The funding sources had no involvement in the study design, the collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data, the writing of this article, or the decision to submit this report for publication.

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  1. Department of Education and the Brain and Motivation Research Institute (bMRI), Korea University, 145 Anam-ro, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul, 02841, Korea

    Minhye Lee, Dajung Diane Shin & Mimi Bong

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  1. Minhye Lee
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  3. Mimi Bong
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Contributions

M.L. (first author) conceived of, designed, and coordinated the study, statistically analyzed the data, interpreted the results, and drafted and revised the manuscript; D.D.S. participated in the conception, design, and coordination of the study, and assisted in the statistical analysis of the data, interpretation of the results, and drafting of the manuscript; M.B. (corresponding author) supervised the design of the study, statistical analysis of the data, and interpretation of the results, and critically reviewed and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Data Sharing Declaration

The data sets analyzed in the current study are not publicly available but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Correspondence to Mimi Bong.

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All procedures performed in this study were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee (Korea University Institutional Review Board Approval no. 1040548-KU-IRB-16-178-A-1) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Lee, M., Shin, D.D. & Bong, M. Boys are Affected by Their Parents More Than Girls are: Parents’ Utility Value Socialization in Science. J Youth Adolescence 49, 87–101 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01047-6

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