The impact of evaluation procedure on occupational sex-typing at differenteducational levels

This article examines the impact of two evaluation condition's on sex-typin g of occupations in Israel: "vague instructions" (no specific criterion for assessing gender-based occupational stereotypes), and "gender-related capa bilities" (i.e., gender attributes perceived as essential for practicing an occupation). The sample consisted of 614 respondents from four different e ducational groups: junior high school students, high school students, unive rsity students, and teachers. Sex-typing was examined according to three oc cupational categories: "feminine," "masculine," and "gender neutral," refle cting the representation of the genders in each field in Israel. On the who le it was found that in the "gender-related capabilities" condition respond ents expressed less sex-typed perceptions of occupations than in the "vague instructions" condition. In addition, the findings revealed that the unive rsity students expressed less sex-typed perceptions than the other educatio n groups in both evaluation conditions. Regarding the impact of gender, the female respondents were generally Less sex-typed than the males regardless of evaluation condition. Several practical recommendations are provided in an attempt to counteract sex-typing of occupations at different educationa l levels.