- Data, Statistics and AI for Well-Being of People and Organisations
- A cura di Luigi Fabbris, Alberto Franci, Pietro Renzi
Gender stereotypes among Italian students: The role of socio-emotional skills
- Sergio Longobardi
- Antonella Rocca
- © 2026 Author(s) |
- CC BY 4.0
- DOI: 10.36253/979-12-215-1062-1.46
Despite the recent decreasing trend in gender gap, socio-economic inequalities linked to gender are still a major concern in most countries. However, recent studies demonstrated that the general decrease in gender inequalities was mainly linked to the higher women’s human capital endowments, while the part of this gap not explainable by these characteristics still increased in the last years. Increasing women’s labour force participation and promoting gender equality represent one of the SDG goals. Various contributions in socio-economic literature revealed that the persistence of gender inequality was mainly connected to the consolidated gender stereotypes. Academic research shows that they start very early in childhood and tend to persist and cumulate in adulthood. In this perspective, our study draws on data from the ENRICH project (Evaluating Non-Cognitive Skills for Resilience, Innovation, and Change), a recent experimental study carried out in Italy. The project assesses the level of non-cognitive skills among Italian students while also measuring the presence and intensity of gender stereotypes. ENRICH data allow us to explore the relationship between socio-emotional skills and gender stereotypes in a representative sample of lower secondary school students in Italy. Our analysis controls for academic performance and individual characteristics such as gender, geographical area of residence, and socio-economic background. We estimate alternative regression model specifications using, as the dependent variable, a composite indicator of gender stereotypes based on nine items with female-, male-, and neutral-oriented polarizations. Results highlight the significant role of socio-emotional skills in explaining differences in the internalization of gender stereotypes. Promoting skills such as empathy and responsibility appears to be associated with a reduction in stereotypical beliefs. From an educational policy perspective, our findings underscore the importance of fostering socio-emotional skills among students as a key strategy to combat gender stereotypes and promote greater gender equity from an early age.
- Keywords:
- gender stereotypes,
- socio-emotional skills,
- Italian students,
University of Naples Parthenope, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0003-1328-691X
University of Naples Parthenope, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0001-8171-3149
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Informazioni sul capitolo
Titolo del capitolo
Gender stereotypes among Italian students: The role of socio-emotional skills
Autori
Sergio Longobardi, Antonella Rocca
Lingua
Inglese
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-1062-1.46
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2026
Copyright
© 2026 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Informazioni bibliografiche
Titolo del libro
Data, Statistics and AI for Well-Being of People and Organisations
Curatori
Luigi Fabbris, Alberto Franci, Pietro Renzi
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
420
Anno di pubblicazione
2026
Copyright
© 2026 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-1062-1
ISBN Print
979-12-215-1061-4
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-1062-1
eISBN (xml)
979-12-215-1063-8
Collana
Applied Statistics Series