Ugandan adolescents’ gender stereotype knowledge about jobs

ABSTRACT

Ugandan adolescents ages 11- to 17-years-old (N = 201; 48% girls; M_age = 14.62) answered closed- and open-ended questions about occupational gender segregation, allowing researchers to assess their gender stereotype knowledge. Adolescents answered 38 closed-ended questions such as ‘who is more likely to be a doctor?’ and were asked to list masculine, feminine, and gender-neutral jobs. Data were analyzed via descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, t-tests, and thematic coding. Findings indicated that adolescents were fairly egalitarian about jobs and there were no differences in occupational stereotype knowledge between males and females. Findings present reasons for hope and for continued work toward gender equality in Uganda. Results may inform interventions that foster egalitarian gender attitudes. Future work could explore adolescents’ stereotype endorsement and occupational aspirations.

KEYWORDS:

• Occupational gender stereotypes
• gender segregation
• Uganda
• adolescents

Acknowledgments

We are grateful for funding from the Challenged Child Project and the Gulliot Endowment. We would like to thank Wanjala Joseph Masinde, Mulejju Dick, and Rebeca Awahy Nandudu. We express gratitude to all the student participants, to Ikibo Robert for assisting with school recruitment and data collection, and to Hope 4 Kids International for assistance with logistics. We thank our research assistants: Abbey Pellino, Aubrey Utter, Bianca Finocchiaro, Brittany Walton, Casiana Pascariu, Danming An, Derek Pezzella, Hafsa Ibrahim, Kari Eckert, and Mrwah Ahmad. We are grateful to Victoria Namuggala and Nyambura Mundia for providing feedback. Portions of this work were presented at the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues annual meeting, Albuquerque, NM, June, 2017.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.

Ethical compliance statement

All study protocols were approved by the Arizona State University Institutional Review Board and institutional ethical standards were followed to obtain participant consent and to ensure protection of participant confidentiality. All protocols were performed in accordance with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Consent was obtained from parents/guardians or from head teachers, whereas adolescent participants provided oral assent. The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Statement of contribution

FF analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript with input from all authors; NEW designed the study, collected the data, and edited the manuscript; LZ analyzed the data and edited the manuscript. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

We are grateful for funding from the Challenged Child Project and the Gulliot Endowment.