Teen Girls on Business - Simmons College

<strong>Teen</strong> <strong>Girls</strong> on Business: Are They Being Empowered?APPENDIX 1: METHODOLOGYSample BreakdownBoys 1,264 (29%)<strong>Girls</strong> 3,028 (71%)Grades 7-9 2,067 (48%)Grades 10-12 2,225 (52%)Public Schools 2,931 (68%)Private Schools 1,361 (32%)Hispanic 829 (19%)White/Caucasian 2,250 (52%)African American 243 (6%)Asian American 204 (5%)All Other 362 (8%)Prefer not toanswer/NR 404 (9%)The conclusions presented are based on an eight-page writtensurvey conducted in April-June 2002 of over 5,000 middleand high school students. The sampling unit was theindividual school, and a total of 29 schools agreed to participate.Each was asked to administer the survey to bothboys and girls across all grades within their schools. In orderto ensure statistically valid sample numbers from each ofseveral subgroups, quota sampling was used. Four geographicregions were represented (New England, Illinois,California, and Texas/Florida/Tennessee), as well as public,private, coed, and single-sex schools. In addition, schoolswere recruited from urban, suburban, and rural areas.We analyzed a total of 4,292 surveys. The robust size of thefinal sample allowed us to divide it into sub-samples for thepurposes of comparing responses across groups. Unless otherwisenoted, all differences in means and percentagesreported are statistically significant at the 95% confidencelevel.<strong>Teen</strong> boys are underrepresented in the final sample. Becausethe data from the male respondents was used primarily forcomparison purposes, and hence would not undergo thesame depth of analysis as the data from female respondents,only 50% of the responses from boys was analyzed.Because we used a non-probability method of sampling, thefinal results cannot be viewed as representative of the populationof school-age children in the United States. Comparedto the general population, students living in middle-incomezip codes, students from private schools, and Hispanic andWhite/Caucasian students are overrepresented. AfricanAmerican students are underrepresented.In addition to the written survey, a total of 17 focus groupswere conducted with middle and high school girls (9), parentsof teenage girls (4), and middle and high school teachers(4). In-depth interviews were conducted with 15 educationspecialists and educators. Finally, a content analysis ofthe images of business and business people in media popularwith teenage girls was completed in the spring and summerof 2002.48