This article reports on a survey of 332 Year 3 students from 14 Australian schools. We are interested in exploring Year 3 primary school student aspirations and what this data shows us about any societal changes, or not. This study is timely as it reports on contemporary data within an Australian educational context marked by significant investment in improving equitable gendered participation, particularly for girls entering STEM. Drawing on conceptions of masculinities and femininities as social constructions, we report on the participants’ desired occupations and explore their justifications for such choices. The top three occupations for boys included careers in professional sports, STEM-related jobs and policing/defence. Girls reported wanting to be teachers, veterinarians or to work in the arts as their top choices. As part of our exploration, we found issues of money and power—traditionally coded masculine—and conceptions of love and care—traditionally coded feminine—ingrained in boys’ and girls’ justifications for their desired trajectories. Findings are significant for illustrating how traditional constructions of gender are ingrained in career choices in the early years of primary school and how policy agendas to widen participation need to start early in life.

中文翻译：

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3 年级学生职业选择：探索职业选择理由中男性气质和女性气质结构的社会变化

本文报道了对来自 14 所澳大利亚学校的 332 名三年级学生的调查。我们有兴趣探索 3 年级小学生的愿望，以及这些数据向我们展示了任何社会变化或没有。这项研究是及时的，因为它报告了澳大利亚教育背景下的当代数据，其特点是在改善公平的性别参与方面进行了大量投资，特别是对于进入 STEM 的女孩。借鉴作为社会建构的男性气质和女性气质的概念，我们报告了参与者想要的职业，并探讨了他们做出这些选择的理由。男孩排名前三的职业包括职业运动、STEM 相关工作和警务/国防。女孩们表示希望成为教师、兽医或从事艺术工作是她们的首选。作为我们探索的一部分，我们发现金钱和权力的问题——传统上被编码为男性——以及爱和关怀的概念——传统上被编码为女性——根植于男孩和女孩对他们想要的轨迹的理由中。研究结果对于说明传统的性别建构如何在小学早期的职业选择中根深蒂固，以及扩大参与的政策议程如何需要从生命的早期开始就具有重要意义。