Presenter(s): India Zietsman International Studies
Faculty Mentor(s): Galen Martin, Erin Gallo
Oral Session 2O
Research Area: Social Science
My studies in Chile demonstrated the way gendered stereotypes are reected and reproduced in the education system within technical schools. I visited three technical schools and interviewed 12 of their students to discover that boys felt pressured to choose professional concentrations that were stereotypically male and girls felt the same pressure toward stereotypically female professional concentrations. However, one might believe that this phenomenon is specic to Chile due to the presence of machismo, and gender’s eects on career choices would be less pronounced in the United States. To examine this assumption, I looked at the experiences of 24 men and women in 4 majors at the University of Oregon. I found that the stereotypical narratives of these majors impacted the level of inclusion felt by all other genders than the dominant gender. Women studying Computer Science felt excluded and discriminated against due to the overwhelming masculinity of the major and a lack of consideration for women within the major. Women studying business felt included and accepted, but they also felt pressured to work harder than the men studying business in order to compensate for their gender. Whereas, men studying Education and International Studies, which typically have a female majority, noticed that there were less men in their major but felt less exclusion and discrimination. Therefore, the Chilean students and the students in Oregon share similar pressures from gendered stereotypes and exclusive, gendered careers, which disproves the idea that the machista Chilean society has more severe eects on inclusive academic institutions.