Research within gender and identity processes has recently presented a new problem in the area. Focus has shifted from risk categories of young men to upper middle-class young men. The later associates masculinity with effortless achievement and beliefs in ability and intelligence as something fixed, that you either have or not (Nyström, 2012). In a study by Holm and Öhrn (2014) the boys with excellent grades received high status positions however, it was important that the excellent grades was not associated with hard work and effort but instead high and fixed intelligence. This could be problematic in the long run for the boys. The studies above were performed with ethnographic methodology.

This study investigates the above results with quantitative instruments and Univariate Anova analyzes. More specifically we are trying to solve the question if female and male students at an upper-middle class, upper secondary school (16-17 years old) might differ in beliefs about intelligence as either fixed and inborn or developmental and dependent on effort. We also investigate if students from different educational disciplinary domains represented in the social science or natural science program differ on these variables. Our questions are;

-       If males favors fixed and inborn beliefs about intelligence compared to female students that prefer to see intelligence as dynamic and effort dependent (Implicit Theories of Intelligence, Dweck, 1999)

-       If males compared to female students favor to explain excellent grades with high ability and not with hard work and effort (Holm & Öhrn, 2014)

-       If male and female student differ or/and there is a main or  interaction effect dependent on educational domain concerning the concept self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997).

-       If male and female students differ in their beliefs that their teachers’ think that they will achieve well.

-       Is the above concepts related?

Implicit theories of intelligence differ between entity theories of intelligence which is the naïve beliefs about ability as fixed and genetic or incremental theories of intelligence that is the belief that intelligence is dependent on effort and by this is dynamic and possible to change (Dweck, 1999). If a student believes intelligence to be unchangeable it will decrease achievement in opposite to if the pupil believes it to be dependent on effort and changeable which will increase achievement irrespectively of if it is a high or low achieving student (Blackwell, Rodriguez & Guerra-Carrillo, 2015). Results of gender in this research area do not give a coherent pitcher. It has for example been shown that girls prefer an fixed entity theory of intelligence compared to boys which means that boys see intelligence as more malleable and dependent on effort (Dweck & Legget, 1988). However, not all studies have come to this conclusion. Good, Rattan and Dweck (2012) showed for example no gender differences in implicit theories of intelligence. This need to be further investigated and can be interesting to do in a domain such as natural science/mathematic because this domain seems to have greater impact on entity theories of intelligence (Jonsson, Beach, Korp & Erlandson, 2012). Self-efficacy is according to Bandura (1997) people’s beliefs concerning their ability to perform the behaviours needed to achieve desired outcomes. This concept influence pupils achievement and gender effects has been shown where girls shows lower self-efficacy than boys in for example the domain of mathematic. Finally it has been shown that active male students are experienced as more visible at an individual level to teachers compared with active girls (Öhrn, 1990). Because of that we are also interested in how the students experience their teachers attention and trust to them as learners.

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York: W. H. Freeman. Blackwell, L. S., Rodriguez, S., & Guerra-Carrillo, B. (2015). Intelligence as a Malleable Construct. In Handbook of Intelligence (pp. 263-282). Springer New York. Carr, P.B., & Dweck, C. S. (2011). Intelligence and motivation. (pp. 748-770) In R.J. Sternberg and S.B. Kaufman (Eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence. New York: Cambridge University Press. Dweck, C. S. (1986). Motivational processes affecting learning. American Psychologist, 41(10), 1040-1048. Dweck, C. S. (1999). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. Philadelphia: Psychology press. Dweck, C.S. & Legget, E.L. (1988). A social cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95, 256-273. Holm, A-S., & Öhrn, E. (2014). Diskurser om prestationer, begåvning och arbete. (ss. 31-55). I E. Öhrn och A-S, Hom (Reds.) Att lyckas i skolan. Om skolprestationer och kön i olikaundervisningspraktiker. Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis. Good, C., Rattan, A., & Dweck, C.S. (2012). Why do woman opt out? Sense of belonging and women’s representation in mathematics. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026659 Jonsson, A-C., Beach, D., Korp, H & Erlandsson, P. (2012). Teachers’ implicit theories of intelligence: Influences from different disciplines and scientific theories, European Journal of Teacher Education, 35, (4), 387-400. Nyström, A. (2012). Att synas och lära utan att synas lära: en studie om underprestation och privilegierade unga mäns identitetsförhandlingar i gymnasieskolan. Diss. Uppsala : Uppsala universitet, 2012. Uppsala. Öhrn, E. (1990). Könsmönster i klassrumsinteraktion. En observations och intervjustudie av högstadieelevers lärarkontakter [Gender patterns in classroom interactions: Observations and interviews concerning students’ interactions with teachers in grade 9 of the comprehensive school] (Dissertation, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg).