Miriam Walther and Dr. Mikaela Dufur, Sociology

While 13.8% of workers in architecture and engineering occupations are women, 77.6% of personal care and service workers are female (Bureau of Labor and Statistics 2005). What is the cause of this discrepancy? While these occupations are so heavily gendered, 50.3% of workers in management, professional, and related occupations are women (Bureau of Labor and Statistics 2005). Why are these not gendered? Men and women go on for higher education to develop skills needed to form a career, and the representation of men and women in most large universities is evenly divided at 50% each, but many individual majors are specifically gendered mirroring the labor market. This study will analyze what factors influence students to choose their college majors. Previous studies have examined various possible explanations for the gendering of majors. Looking at SAT scores, false stereotypes, environmental factors, and sex-discrimination. What is not as well understood, however, is if the individual personally feels that their choice correlates with their familial influences or peer relationships. This qualitative study examines specifically whom college students perceive as their primary influences in choosing a major and the rationale individual students use to explain their major choice, specifically looking at relationships with family and friends and how influences are affected by gender. Information was gathered using a semi-structured interview. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed word for word. Using NVIVO7, an extensive content analysis was conducted to determine what patterns emerged among students.

Hypotheses

The first hypothesis identified was that men will feel from their friends and family members to do something less gratifying so that they can have a larger income. The second hypothesis went further to say that women do not have this pressure and will therefore only do what they greatly enjoy. It was interesting that although many students said that their parents and peers expected them to graduate from college and have a family, the way in which they spoke of this had very different trends. Men were more likely to express the expectation to support a family than females were. One male engineering major said, “They probably expect me to get married, to graduate, to find a good job, and to you know be a successful engineer” A female on the other hand said, “Just kind of your normal sort of thing where you go and you eventually find someone to get married and then you start a career and then you, you know, have children, stay home with them”. Comparing these two engineering majors illustrates this point clearly. While both felt an expectation from their friends to graduate from college and have a career, they expressed it very differently.

However, these hypotheses could be argued against when looking at the idea that for the most part, people seemed to like their majors. Across the board, students said that they liked the subject matter of their major. The engineering majors said just as much as anyone else that “It’s always been an interest of mine” or “I really enjoyed playing around with electronics, and I was fascinated by how computers could work—it just seemed like a box that randomly did stuff for you.” Nursing majors expressed their love for helping people and that nursing allowed them to help others. “Because I really wanted to help people, and I thought that would be the best way because doctors—they walk in the room and walk out and there’s not a lot of doctor-patient interaction and the nurses do most of the work.” The sociology majors too felt their majors were interesting. “I guess compared to other majors there’s a lot of different topics, you know talking about racial issues or inequality or economics, politics, you know, there’s lots of different variety in the topics and in the classes.”

No one says when you first ask them why they chose their major that it was because of a pressure to provide for a family. However, looking at the expectations that they had from friends and family, it may be that because of socialization, they were more prone to choose the majors that they did. Although they found their majors interesting, it is likely that they found their majors interesting because of the expectations placed on them than because they were simply more prone to enjoy that specific major. These questions may not be fully answered because of the small sample size and that male sociologists said very little about how stereotypes affect them. Since sociology is not something that on average leads to a lot of money, it may be interesting to further investigate whether male sociologists were likely to feel pressure to be able to make money and why they chose sociology.

The third and fourth hypotheses said that students will perceive that it is their families and their peers who help to influence their choice of major. Interestingly, students do not seem to perceive that their family or friends influence them. They do have expectations from their friends and family that they are well aware of. Although students do not identify this as the primary reason for choosing a major, they do report that it is happening. A number of things will contribute to a students’ choice of major, and expectations from others are likely to play a key role in it.

Conclusion

The social environment in which we live exerts an influence upon us independent of whether we acknowledge it or not. University students are in a particular vulnerable age relative to social pressures as their status in social groups (familial, religious, academic, and professional) is in constant fluctuation. While all of the students consistently and vehemently identified expectations of them, none of them expressed an idea that they were influenced by such. The common theme was, “oh yeah, these pressures and stereotypes exist but they only influence other people, not me.” Causes of this way of thinking among college students is likely because relevant influences which are imbedded in their very nurture, not simply in their perception of their nurturing environment. Certainly more needs to be studied with relation to family and friend influences on students and the choices that they make.

Doing this research study has helped me gain the research skills I will need as I begin graduate work in Sociology. This study helps to spark an interest in the importance of qualitative research. In order to really understand social problems, it is necessary to really understand what people are going through and qualitative research is the only way to do this.

References

• United States. Dept. of Labor. 2005. Women in the Labor Force: A Databook. Bureau of Labor Statistics. www.bls.gov