Why Junior High School Girls Are Unlikely To Consider Themselves “STEM Types”: The STEM/Humanities Awareness Gender Differentiation Mechanism

The proportion of women in Japanese higher education has gradually increased, but men still dominate in majors such as science and engineering. As a background to this gender segregation, some survey results show that even before entering high school, there is a tendency for boys to evaluate themselves as the “science type” and girls as the “humanities type.” Based on these findings, this study focused on the humanities and science self-concepts of junior high school students and examined the mechanism of gender differentiation.