Maintenance of Gender Inequalities: socio-psychological processes of legitimation. – GENIM

Both laboratory studies and field studies constitute our work. We use various methodologies : experimental research (or experiences) in order to establish causal effects between variables and correlational studies to show links between variables. The procedures for the experiment, and the treatment of experimental participants, conformed to the ethical guidelines.
The present programme consists of four tasks corresponding to the four research directions. Task 1, based on three correlational studies and three experiences, is focused on awareness of academic abilities gender stereotypes and their consequences. Task 2, based on one correlational study and four experiences, is focused on internalisation of gender stereotypes as legitimising tools and their impact on the self and performance. Task 3, made up of three correlational studies and four experiences, is focused on selection, education, and girls’ and boys’ achievement in the education system. Task 4, based on one correlational study and four experiences, examines meritocratic ideology and judgment on women denouncing sexism.

In research direction 1, the results showed that there is an ambivalent gender stereotype concerning academic achievement of girls. They are perceived as more compliant, more hard-working and intelligent, but less assertive than boys. Moreover, girls’ intelligence is perceived as less malleable than that of boys.
In research direction 2, results revealed that boys and girls perceive themselves and report academic possible selves in conformity to gender stereotypes. These gendered perceptions are associated with levels of reported hostile and benevolent sexism. In addition, when system justification is necessary, girls perceive themselves less competent in math and more competent in the verbal domain compared to their male counterpart and recall less high marks in math. These differences disappear when they do not have to justify the system. In research direction 3, the studies showed that boys and girls, as respectively dominant and subordinate group members in the social system, react in a different way to the selection function of the educational institutions. This selection function was directly induced with a competitive context, or with the academic level (before/ after baccalauréat), or with the type of evaluation. These contexts influence in a different way boys’ and girls’ motivation, and especially, motivation to success better than the other students or the fear to fail, and their performances.
In research direction 4, it appears that women judge positively an ingroup member claiming sexism only when social equality values are salient (personal values of these women or experimentally induced).

The present research programme should help develop greater understanding of the socio-psychological processes which contribute to maintaining women in a dominated position compared to men, despite numerous improvements in women’s academic success and employment outcomes. If the studies proposed in this research project confirm the hypotheses, the results of the present research programme should underline the role of gender stereotypes and legitimisation ideologies such as meritocracy in maintaining gender inequalities and concrete perspectives will be suggest as to present assessment as a tool for improving learning rather than as a tool for comparing performances.

We have published one article in Sex Roles in 2012 and another one in British Journal of Educational Psychology in 2013. The other results will be submitted for publication in journals of social psychology, educational psychology, in interdisciplinary journals on gender studies, and presented at national and international conferences in social psychology. They could also find a place in widely read general science magazines (e.g., Pour la Science, Sciences Humaines, Cerveau et Psycho) and at conferences on gender and education for the general public.

The present research programme would constitute an important step forward in the understanding of a current paradox in gender inequalities: Whereas girls have outperformed boys in school for 30 years, women continue to be underrepresented in prestigious courses of study and careers. We suggest that an explanation of this paradox may be found in processes in which social arrangements are legitimised, even at the expense of personal and group interest, as in a social justification system as defined by Jost and colleagues (Jost & Banaji, 1994; Jost, Banaji, & Nosek, 2004; Jost & Hunyady, 2002). The present programme would contribute to examining three main processes of maintaining gender inequalities: gender stereotypes and their function as essentialist instruments allowing the justification and reinforcement of inequalities (research directions 1 and 2), the selection and justification functions of educational institutions (research direction 3), and, finally, the negative judgment passed on women who claim sexism and its role in justifying salary and promotion inequalities. In sum, the present research project aims to bring a psychosocial contribution to the question of the maintenance of gender inequalities in scholastic and academic contexts, as well as that of sexism and claims of discrimination.