Representations of leadership within a gender perspective among secondary school students

This work focuses on the analysis of the attitudes of young people towards leadership with a view to gender, with the aim of investigating some cultural implicits that can influence the future choices of students and which, precisely for this reason, must be taken into consideration in the educational field. In particular we decided to focus our attention on two dimensions that affect the construction of the image of leadership and which can constitute both obstacles and driving forces in promoting female participation. On one hand we tried to analyse the stereotypes of leadership with a view to gender, and on the other hand we looked into the awareness that young girls and boys have concerning female participation in the labour market. We were particularly interested in understanding if and to what extent the construction of the image of leadership with a view to gender could be influenced by stereotypes and prejudices that lie behind the segregation mechanisms that lead to the glass ceiling phenomenon. Here we present the results of a survey which involved an initial explorative qualitative phase and a later stage of quantitative investigation involving almost 1900 students enrolled in the last year of secondary school in Italy (in the provinces of Bologna and Rimini). These young males and females were delivered a multi-purpose questionnaire including a series of questions on the image of leadership with a view to gender, among perceptions, experiences and future projections.