Developed through Social Processes? Chinese Women’s Beliefs about Education, Family, and Career

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: In China, gender gaps in academic majors and career aspirations have persisted despite decades of institutional efforts to improve gender equality. While most studies attribute this phenomenon to external factors such as gender discrimination, others point to a need for exploring Chinese women’s beliefs towards education and career. Through 16 in-depth qualitative interviews conducted with women studying or staying in the United States, the present study looks into the possible proximate processes through which Chinese women internalize stereotypical gender beliefs. Two gender beliefs that emerged from the analysis are that boys perform better than girls in mathematics and science and that mothers should contribute more to their children’s education than fathers. By adopting a social psychological perspective, I explain those beliefs in terms of two corresponding social processes through which interviewees rationalized and internalized the beliefs. These beliefs and processes led many interviewees to lowered aspirations that might have contributed to the persistence of gender differences in academic major choices and career aspirations. This study contributes to the social psychological literature on the formation of gender beliefs, and informs the observed persistence of gender inequality in China through Chinese women’s narratives.

Type of resource	text
Date created	July 2015

Author	Wu, Peng

Subject	gender beliefs
Subject	proximate processes
Subject	academic choices
Subject	women’s careers
Subject	education in China
Subject	mother’s family roles
Subject	social psychology
Subject	Stanford Graduate School of Education International Comparative Education
Genre	Thesis

Related item	Title Stanford Graduate School of Education International Comparative Education
Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/ns274tf4276

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

Graduate School of Education International Comparative Education Master's Monographs

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