The role of self-efficacy and social belonging in Norwegian upper secondary students’ interest in gendered occupations.

Ute Gabriel; Jonathan Kim; Jonette Taraldsen

doi:10.1007/s11218-025-10068-y

The role of self-efficacy and social belonging in Norwegian upper secondary students’ interest in gendered occupations.

Ute Gabriel^*, Jonathan Kim, Jonette Taraldsen

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Psychology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

This study examined how self-efficacy and expected social belonging influence Norwegian upper secondary students’ interest in gender-dominated and gender-balanced occupations. A survey of 205 students assessed their self-efficacy, expected social belonging, and vocational interest for 12 occupations presented with short descriptions. Results indicated a preference for gender-matching occupations: girls showed more interest in women-dominated occupations, while boys preferred men-dominated ones. In line with Social Cognitive Career Theory, both girls’ and boys’ self-efficacy and expected social belonging similarly predicted their vocational interests. This finding contrasts with other studies that may have conflated gender composition of occupations with their status. However, self-efficacy and expected social belonging do not fully account for the preference for gender-matching occupations. Notably, girls’ expected social belonging was more strongly associated with interest in gender-balanced and women-dominated occupations than in men-dominated ones, whereas no such pattern was found for boys.

Original language	English
Article number	109
Pages (from-to)	28-109
Number of pages	81
Journal	Social Psychology of Education
Volume	28
Issue number	1
Early online date	26 May 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-025-10068-y
Publication status	Published - Dec 2025

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Data Access Statement

The dataset and analysis code generated and/or analysed during this study are publicly available on NTNU Dataverse.no: https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.18710/CHMWOB

Funding

Open access funding provided by NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology (incl St. Olavs Hospital - Trondheim University Hospital).

Funders	Funder number
Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet

Keywords

Gender
Vocational interest
Self-efficacy
Social belonging
Social cognitive career theory

Access to Document

10.1007/s11218-025-10068-yLicence: CC BY 4.0

Gabriel Kim and Taraldsen_Self-efficacy and social belonging in Norwegian upper secondary students interest in gendered occupations
Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Final published version, 962 KBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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abstract = "This study examined how self-efficacy and expected social belonging influence Norwegian upper secondary students{\textquoteright} interest in gender-dominated and gender-balanced occupations. A survey of 205 students assessed their self-efficacy, expected social belonging, and vocational interest for 12 occupations presented with short descriptions. Results indicated a preference for gender-matching occupations: girls showed more interest in women-dominated occupations, while boys preferred men-dominated ones. In line with Social Cognitive Career Theory, both girls{\textquoteright} and boys{\textquoteright} self-efficacy and expected social belonging similarly predicted their vocational interests. This finding contrasts with other studies that may have conflated gender composition of occupations with their status. However, self-efficacy and expected social belonging do not fully account for the preference for gender-matching occupations. Notably, girls{\textquoteright} expected social belonging was more strongly associated with interest in gender-balanced and women-dominated occupations than in men-dominated ones, whereas no such pattern was found for boys.",

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The role of self-efficacy and social belonging in Norwegian upper secondary students’ interest in gendered occupations.

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Access Statement

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

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