Master of Arts / Department of Economics / Florence Neymotin / Florence Neymotin / This report provides review of the existing literature on the role model effect in higher education and identifies the methodological and conceptual issues that have complicated the research program before discussing how research on similar areas may provide insight into the relationship between female students and female faculty members. By examining the related literature on the determinants of college major, peer effects, and critical mass theory, the existing studies of role model effect can be interpreted as support for a more specified theory of the role model effect in higher education that highlights the importance of the gender composition of the course or field of study.

With the highest representation of female parliamentarians in the world, Rwanda is a frequently reoccurring case when studying the impact of increased female representation. In this debate, little attention has been given to symbolic representation and particularly to the concept of the Role Model Effect. To bridge this gap, the purpose is to provide insights to how the Role Model Effect operates in a rural, non-quota context, separated from high politics. Consequently, the thesis seeks to examine how female board members in Rwandan agricultural cooperatives affect the willingness of female members to obtain board positions. The data was collected through a qualitative field study where 44 respondents in three different cooperatives in Rwanda were interviewed. Respondents were chosen through a combination of strategic selection and snowball sampling. The thesis found that the Role Model Effect required two conditions to be fulfilled before it could be manifested: geographical proximity and trust. If these criteria were met, both female board members and female leaders of lower ranks were found to explicitly and implicitly increase the willingness to obtain leading positions among female members, thus altering ruling gender roles.