Impact of gender stereotypes in the construction of professional identity of college students

Abstract

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the processes of reflection and analysis developed by college students on their last year of Educational Psychology Degree, from the University of Córdoba about the influence of gender stereotypes in the construction of professional identities of women and men. The experience is part of the Professional Guidance course, believing its content and pedagogical approach taken are be closely related to the design and development of professional projects by students and, it is expected that their future professional performance as mentors and counselors will be affected as a result. From a critical perspective, students identified the influence of certain factors of gender inequality in employment. We focus especially on gender socialization processes and the overload of domestic and family responsibility in the case of women. Through the construction of occupational family trees, we propose to discover strategies that perpetuate discrimination against a market structure differentiated by gender. The results show that sexual division of work and occupational segregation characterize the social and employment situation of women perpetuating gender discrimination. Therefore, such inequality factors should be considered in the process of vocational guidance.