Abstract
Academic engagement is vital for college students, yet existing studies reveal inconsistencies in how gender influences academic engagement. Building upon the statistical discrimination theory and identity-based motivation theory, this study develops an integrated model to examine gender differences in college students’ academic engagement. Further, the role that gender-role orientation in influencing academic engagement was investigated. Using a sample of 524 college students (Mage = 21.11, SD = 1.98; 47.7% women) from a large university collected in two time periods, the findings indicate that in the Chinese context, women anticipate higher future sex discrimination than men. However, gender-role orientation restores parity between men and women through a moderated mediation: egalitarian gender-role orientation has a stronger effect on women’s anticipated future sex discrimination than on men’s, resulting in increased academic engagement of women. The findings highlight the need to consider female students’ egalitarian beliefs in gender-related academic research.
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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72202162).
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J.X. conceived the study, participated in its design, performed statistical analyses, and drafted the manuscript; L.Y. participated in the data collection, and rewrote parts of the manuscript; X.Z. participated in the data collection, and provided critical feedback on the draft of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Xu, J., Yu, L. & Zhang, X. Bridging the Gender Gap in Academic Engagement among Young Adults: The Role of Anticipated Future Sex Discrimination and Gender-role Orientation. J. Youth Adolescence (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-024-02009-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-024-02009-3