THE STUBBORNNESS OF GENDER STEREOTYPES IN EDUCATION: A QUANTITATIVE AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY ON BELIEFS, ATTITUDES AND ROLE MODELS AMONG HIGH-SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ITALY

This thesis aims to contribute to the literature studying gender stereotypes, the mechanism through which they affect choices and behaviour and the efficacy of role models’ interventions in minimizing the effect of stereotypes. It was designed as a collection of papers, each focusing on one aspect of the general theme and heterogeneous in the type of contribution, still related to the common thread of gender stereotypes in the STEM and humanities sectors. The first chapter provides a review of the instruments used to measure gender-science/reading stereotypes, including a comparison and discussion about their limitations. The second chapter is a network study on a sample of high school students that tests the hypothesis that whenever gender is salient, expectations on abilities might reflect gender constructs even when information on individual performance is available. The third chapter examines the association between implicit gender stereotypes and major choice in STEM and humanities, for both male and female high school students. The fourth chapter provides a scoping review of empirical research on role models’ and mentors’ interventions that address the issue of the underrepresentation of women in STEM. Finally, the fifth chapter contributes to the literature on role models by presenting an online experiment conducted on high-school Italian students, who were exposed to stereotypical and/or counterstereotypical professionals.