[originaltext]W: Well, we heard some people just now who seem to feel that othe

W: Well, we heard some people just now who seem to feel that other people have a wrong idea about the work they do. Do you think this sort of thing is very widespread?
M: Oh absolutely. Most jobs or professions seem to have an image or a stereotype attached to them, often much to the irritation of the job holders. But there is a serious point to all this, too, that maybe young people actually choose their careers under the influence of these false images. And certainly, there is evidence that they may even avoid certain careers because they have a negative image. Well, on a large scale, as you can imagine, this could cause problems for whole sectors of the economy.
W: Err, you say there’s evidence?
M: Oh most definitely. There was a survey recently into children’s attitudes to different professions.
W: How was that done, though? Because, after all, children don’t know much about the world of work before they get into it.
M: Well, exactly. What the investigators wanted to get at was their impressions and their prejudices. They used a very simple technique. They gave the children twelve pairs of statements. In each pair one statement was positive, the other was its opposite.
W: I see. What professions did they ask about?
M: Do you really want the whole list? It’s huge!