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.