Relationship Between College Women's Occupational Interests and a Single‐Sex Environment

Abstract

This study investigated whether the gender composition of the home and high‐school environment in which a woman was reared has an influence upon her occupational interests. Results indicated that college women who reported attending a single‐sex high school and who also had brothers demonstrated interest in non‐traditional careers significantly more often than did their counterparts who attended coed schools. Those women from single‐sex high schools reporting having sisters only did not differ significantly from the other three groups. These results were interpreted as being useful in explaining some of the discrepant findings in the previous literature concerning the overall effect of single‐sex secondary education.

Trajectories of math achievement and perceived math competence over high school and postsecondary education: effects of an all-girl curriculum in high school

“…For example, Gilroy and her colleagues (Rubenfeld & Gilroy, 1991;Scheye & Gilroy, 1994) examined differences in occupational interest for females who had attended co-ed versus all-girl high schools. They found that females who had brothers at home and who had attended all-girl high schools were Educational Research and Evaluation 539 more likely to be interested in math-and science-related careers than females who had only sisters or who had attended co-ed high schools (Rubenfeld & Gilroy, 1991). Although the current study did control for levels of parental education and parental expectations (although it was only measured with a single item, which may have reduced its ability to show differences), other home socializing factors might be important for understanding female math trajectories.…”

Applying Image Norms Across Super's Career Development Stages

“…When counseling diverse populations, career counselors should explore the relationship between image norms and other individual difference variables, including gender (Piel Cook, 1993, disability status (Friehe, Aune, & Leuenberger, 1996), sexual orientation (Pope et al, 2004), ethnic identity (Fouad & Arbona, 1994;Perrone, Sedlacek, & Alexander, 2001), age (Brewington & Nassar-McMillan, 2000), and social economic status (Trusty & Ng, 2000). Counselors should address the needs of both male and female clients who expect to choose nontraditional careers (Rubenfeld & Gilroy, 1991), because image norms typically reflect gender-traditional occupations.…”

Survey and Assessment in Women's Colleges: An Issue of Context

“…Astin (1977Astin ( , 1993, after controlling for a variety of background characteristics, including socioeconomic status (parental education and income) and institutional selectivity, found that women's colleges still had positive effects on overall academic development, cultural awareness, writing skills, critical thinking ability, and foreign-language skills. Much of the recent literature has examined the difference in cognitive outcomes between students attending women's colleges and those attending coeducational colleges (Lee and Bryk, 1986;Ossana, Helmes, and Leonard, 1992;Rubenfeld and Gilroy, 1991). Smith and her colleagues (1995) found that women's colleges have a direct, positive effect on women's academic involvement.…”