Gender Stereotypes within the University. Does Sexism Determine the Choice of Degree amongst University Students?

Abstract

Nowadays gender-based violence has not only grown but it has become increasingly evident in gender stereotypes upheld by younger people. Universal education is necessary to eradicate these stereotypes in university classrooms. The aim of this work is to find if a relationship exists between sexism and the choice of degree among university students, and if this relates to national culture. We applied the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory (Expósito, Moya and Glick, 1998 and the Dating Violence Questionnaire by Rodríguez-Franco et al., 2007) to 1,196 university students. The results show that there is a relationship between sexism and the student’s choice of degree course and, particularly, that there is more sexism in technical degrees than in humanities degrees. The cultural ideology is similar between Mexico and Catalonia and only varies in its intensity. It concludes that gender equality education is urgently needed as a general course in technical degrees.

En la actualidad la violencia de género, no solo va en aumento, sino que es más evidente en relación con los estereotipos de género en las personas jóvenes. La educación transversal es necesaria para poder erradicar dichos estereotipos de aulas universitarias. Nuestro objetivo es conocer si existe relación entre sexismo y la elección de la carrera entre los universitarios y si existe relación con la cultura. Para ello utilizamos el Inventario de Sexismo Ambivalente (Expósito, Moya y Glick, 1998) y Cuestionario de Violencia entre novios (Rodríguez-Franco et al., 2007) a 1196 universitarios. Los resultados evidencian que existe relación con el sexismo y carrera elegida y, mayor sexismo en carreras técnicas que en las de humanidades. La ideología cultural es similar entre México y Cataluña y variable en la intensidad en todas las mediciones. Se concluye que es muy necesaria la educación sobre la igualdad como materia transversal en carreras técnicas

This investigation was carried out thanks to the support of GESEC: 2014SGR-655 (2014-2017) (Group of studies of society, health, education and culture), University of Lleida; also with the support of CONACyT, where the main author of the article is an intern in a doctorate program.