IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v6y2017i1p14-d90214.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Potential Scientist’s Dilemma: How the Masculine Framing of Science Shapes Friendships and Science Job Aspirations

Author

Listed:
  • G. Robin Gauthier

    (Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 709 Oldfather Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA
    Research, Evaluation and Analysis for Community Health, Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 209 Benton Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA)

  • Patricia Wonch Hill

    (Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 709 Oldfather Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA)

  • Julia McQuillan

    (Department of Sociology, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 709 Oldfather Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA)

  • Amy N. Spiegel

    (Social and Behavioral Sciences Research Consortium, 370E Prem S. Paul Research Center at Whittier School, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2200 Vine Street, Lincoln, NE 68583-0866, USA)

  • Judy Diamond

    (University of Nebraska State Museum, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 307 Morrill Hall, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA)

Abstract

In the United States, girls and boys have similar science achievement, yet fewer girls aspire to science careers than boys. This paradox emerges in middle school, when peers begin to play a stronger role in shaping adolescent identities. We use complete network data from a single middle school and theories of gender, identity, and social distance to explore how friendship patterns might influence this gender and science paradox. Three patterns highlight the social dimensions of gendered science persistence: (1) boys and girls do not differ in self-perceived science potential and science career aspirations; (2) consistent with gender-based norms, both middle school boys and girls report that the majority of their female friends are not science kinds of people; and (3) youth with gender-inconsistent science aspirations are more likely to be friends with each other than youth with gender normative science aspirations. Together, this evidence suggests that friendship dynamics contribute to gendered patterns in science career aspirations.

Suggested Citation

  • G. Robin Gauthier & Patricia Wonch Hill & Julia McQuillan & Amy N. Spiegel & Judy Diamond, 2017. "The Potential Scientist’s Dilemma: How the Masculine Framing of Science Shapes Friendships and Science Job Aspirations," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-21, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:6:y:2017:i:1:p:14-:d:90214
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/6/1/14/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/6/1/14/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Legewie, Joscha & DiPrete, Thomas A., 2014. "The High School Environment and the Gender Gap in Science and Engineering," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 87(4), pages 259-280.
    2. Su, Yu-Sung & Gelman, Andrew & Hill, Jennifer & Yajima, Masanao, 2011. "Multiple Imputation with Diagnostics (mi) in R: Opening Windows into the Black Box," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 45(i02).
    3. Monica Gaughan, 2006. "Institutional Assessment of Women in Science: Introduction to the Symposium," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 307-310, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Patricia Wonch Hill & Julia McQuillan & Eli Talbert & Amy Spiegel & G. Robin Gauthier & Judy Diamond, 2017. "Science Possible Selves and the Desire to be a Scientist: Mindsets, Gender Bias, and Confidence during Early Adolescence," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-18, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Joost Ginkel & Pieter Kroonenberg, 2014. "Using Generalized Procrustes Analysis for Multiple Imputation in Principal Component Analysis," Journal of Classification, Springer;The Classification Society, vol. 31(2), pages 242-269, July.
    2. David Ansong & Moses Okumu & Travis J. Albritton & Eva Paige Bahnuk & Eusebius Small, 2020. "The Role of Social Support and Psychological Well-Being in STEM Performance Trends across Gender and Locality: Evidence from Ghana," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 13(5), pages 1655-1673, October.
    3. Takashi Sugimoto & Tomohiro Shinozaki & Takashi Naruse & Yuki Miyamoto, 2014. "Who Was Concerned about Radiation, Food Safety, and Natural Disasters after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima Catastrophe? A Nationwide Cross-Sectional Survey in 2012," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(9), pages 1-8, September.
    4. Gerko Vink & Laurence E. Frank & Jeroen Pannekoek & Stef Buuren, 2014. "Predictive mean matching imputation of semicontinuous variables," Statistica Neerlandica, Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, vol. 68(1), pages 61-90, February.
    5. Zsuzsa Blasko & Artur Pokropek & Joanna Sikora, 2018. "Science career plans of adolescents: patterns, trends and gender divides," JRC Research Reports JRC109135, Joint Research Centre.
    6. Elizabeth Duthie & Diogo Veríssimo & Aidan Keane & Andrew T Knight, 2017. "The effectiveness of celebrities in conservation marketing," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(7), pages 1-16, July.
    7. Sean Patrick Corcoran & E. Christine Baker-Smith, 2018. "Pathways to an Elite Education: Application, Admission, and Matriculation to New York City's Specialized High Schools," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 13(2), pages 256-279, Spring.
    8. Thomas R. Belin, 2017. "TRIVELLORE RAGHUNATHAN . Missing Data Analysis in Practice . Boca Raton : CRC Press," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 73(3), pages 1059-1060, September.
    9. Tahmooresnejad, Leila & Turkina, Ekaterina, 2022. "Female inventors over time: Factors affecting female Inventors’ innovation performance," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    10. Erdmann, Melinda & Marques Hill, Agustina & Helbig, Marcel & Leuze, Kathrin, 2023. "Do women's empowerment and self-expression values change adolescents' gendered occupational expectations? Longitudinal evidence against the gender-equality paradox from 26 European countries," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 8, pages 1-17.
    11. Christian Seiler, 2013. "Nonresponse in Business Tendency Surveys: Theoretical Discourse and Empirical Evidence," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 52.
    12. Cheng, Xiaoyue & Cook, Dianne & Hofmann, Heike, 2015. "Visually Exploring Missing Values in Multivariable Data Using a Graphical User Interface," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 68(i06).
    13. Caviggioli, Federico & Colombelli, Alessandra & Ravetti, Chiara, 2022. "Peers and stars: the role of gender among coinventors," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 202217, University of Turin.
    14. Rashid, S. & Mitra, R. & Steele, R.J., 2015. "Using mixtures of t densities to make inferences in the presence of missing data with a small number of multiply imputed data sets," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 84-96.
    15. repec:jss:jstsof:45:i01 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Humera Razzak & Christian Heumann, 2019. "Hybrid Multiple Imputation In A Large Scale Complex Survey," Statistics in Transition New Series, Polish Statistical Association, vol. 20(4), pages 33-58, December.
    17. Razzak Humera & Heumann Christian, 2019. "Hybrid Multiple Imputation In A Large Scale Complex Survey," Statistics in Transition New Series, Statistics Poland, vol. 20(4), pages 33-58, December.
    18. Richard E Neapolitan & Xia Jiang, 2015. "Study of Integrated Heterogeneous Data Reveals Prognostic Power of Gene Expression for Breast Cancer Survival," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(2), pages 1-16, February.
    19. Dulce-Salcedo, Olga Victoria & Maldonado, Darío & Sánchez, Fabio, 2022. "Is the proportion of female STEM teachers in secondary education related to women’s enrollment in tertiary education STEM programs?," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    20. Florian Meinfelder, 2014. "Multiple Imputation: an attempt to retell the evolutionary process," AStA Wirtschafts- und Sozialstatistisches Archiv, Springer;Deutsche Statistische Gesellschaft - German Statistical Society, vol. 8(4), pages 249-267, November.
    21. Haiyan Yu & Bing Han & Nicholas Rios & Jianbin Chen, 2024. "Missing Data Imputation in Balanced Construction for Incomplete Block Designs," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-22, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:6:y:2017:i:1:p:14-:d:90214. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.