| Abstract: | This study examined the possibility that notonly women, but also men, face what Hall and Sandler(1982) call  chilling behaviors when theyare students in a major considered nontraditional oratypical for their sex. The population for this studywas all upper-level students (N = 1,992) in accounting,education, engineering, and nursing at a publicuniversity in the mid-South. A random sample of females and males, or a total of 426 junior and seniorfull-time and part-time students in these majors, wasmailed a survey about chilling practices in their major.Analysis of variance was used to clarify the relationships between the independent variablesof students' sex and academic discipline and theinteraction of students' sex and academic discipline andthe dependent variable of perception of practices in their major. The findings indicated that,regardless of their sex, students in these majors didnot perceive practices in their major to bechilling. However, there was a differencein perceptions as a function of major. Both education andnursing students perceived a warmerenvironment in their major than did accounting andengineering students. The pattern was the same for bothfemales and males since there was no interaction of sex andacademic discipline. |
