[1] "We tested the hypothesis that middle school students strongly associate technology with\nmen and caregiving with women in a Swedish context (i.e., a country that scores high in gender equality indices), and\nthat these gender stereotypes for tech relate to girls’ lower interest in tech-focused education."
[2] "Keywords Implicit gender stereotypes · Explicit gender stereotypes · Technology · Caregiving · Implicit association\ntest · Expectancy value theory · Social role theory · Adolescents · Teachers · Interest · STEM · HEED\n\n\nThe labor market is horizontally gender segregated, where et al., 2014; Lippa et al., 2014; Su et al., 2009)."
[3] "The main aim\nby a multitude of factors (see Eccles, 1987, 1994; Eccles & is to investigate if students endorse stereotypes for tech-\nWigfield, 2020; Master & Meltzoff, 2020 for reviews) and nology and caregiving careers according to gender, and if\nsome studies have shown that interest may be the strongest their implicit associations along these dimensions relate to\npredictor of career choice (Maltese & Tai, 2011; Rundgren their interest in pursuing a tech-education in the future."
[4] "relate to students’ tech interest, but due to social desirabil-\n Social role theory (SRT, Eagly, 1987, Koenig & ity concerns associated with explicit measures, predictions\nEagly, 2014) also connects gender stereotypes to gender\n\n\n\n13\n\nSex Roles (2023) 88:307–325 309\n\n\nfor these measures are less straightforward (Dovidio et al., SRT, we expect that the students in this study would gener-\n2003)."
[5] "To conclude, since the care sector and the tech\n(Eagly, 1987), the core of current gender stereotypes may sector are strongly gender skewed in Sweden, we hypoth-\nthus reflect the typical occupational roles for “people” and esize that there would be strong gender stereotypes differen-\n“things” associated with women and men in Western labor tially associated with these two sectors."
[6] "For age, extensive data have shown stronger implicit For gender, although both men and women generally\ngender-science stereotypes in older generations as com- show gender stereotyped associations on the IAT (Miller\npared to younger (see Charlesworth & Banaji, 2019, for a et al., 2015; see also Charlesworth & Banaji, 2019, for a\nreview)."
[7] "Specifically, the teach-\npoint in the expected direction, d = 0.75–1.79, indicating ers reported stronger societal gender stereotypes than the\nthat the students believe that people in Sweden think that students, except for the nonsignificant difference between\nmen have stronger technical ability than women and women teachers’ and Grade 8 students’ societal tech stereotypes\nhave stronger caregiving ability than men, which supported (see Table 3)."
[8] "The results showed that the teachers had much\nin girls corroborates EEVT, SEVT and STEMO, which state stronger implicit technology/caregiving gender stereotypes\nthat gender stereotypes may serve as a barrier to develop- than the students, and the youngest students had the weakest\ning an interest in tech-focused careers for girls and women, associations."
[9] "Since the tech sector has higher stronger in more gender-equal countries, this may hinder\nstatus than the care sector (e.g., Block et al., 2018a; Croft et tech-interest (“things”-interest) development for girls, and\n\n\n\n 13\n\n320 Sex Roles (2023) 88:307–325\n\n\nsubsequently lead to fewer young women studying tech- effects of gender and nationality/ethnicity on technology\neducations, as compared to less gender-equal countries and caregiving stereotypes."
[10] "Historical events may have played a role Also, since the teacher sample was small in this study,\nin shaping a gender-segregated labor market which led to it should be replicated with larger samples of teachers, and\nthe development of strong gender stereotypes despite reduc- other adults, to test if adults generally have stronger implicit\ntions in male-primacy associations (i.e., attitudes privileging technology and caregiving gender stereotypes than children\nmen over women, Knight & Brinton, 2017)."
