Eighth-grade students stereotype STEM careers as masculine

In a survey, eighth-grade students identified women who were in STEM fields to be significantly more intelligent, less attractive, and more creative than women in non-STEM fields. The students did not indicate that they found a difference between women in STEM fields or non-STEM fields in terms of how organized or how good at their job they were. The authors suggest that the development of these stereotypical views could help explain why women are consistently underrepresented in STEM fields and why women consistently choose professions already dominated by women.

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