Discriminatory attitudes towards women in adolescents in Castilla La Mancha (Spain): relation with age and achievement

Abstract

Sexist attitudes maintain gender inequality and constitute an impediment to the exercise of women's human rights. This type of belief is based on the processes of differential socialization, so that educational institutions have to carry out an important work of prevention before the agents of socialization that sustain the subordination of women. The present quantitative study, of ex-post-facto design, analyzes sexist beliefs in a set of 1,840 adolescents, enrolled in 3rd and 4th year of Secondary Education of institutes of Castilla-La Mancha (Spain). The sampling was probabilistic through the homogeneous strata method. The results show that the participants are quite at odds with the sexist beliefs in its two components (hostile and benevolent), although statistically significant differences were found depending on the course, the students of the higher level being less sexist. These differences are greater in terms of academic performance, since adolescents with lower academic performance accepted sexism to a greater extent. Knowing the acceptance of such attitudes and their relationship with variables is important to continue deepening the changes that would be introduced in the curricula to make coeducation more explicit and eliminate discrimination against women.