According to the Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey (ACS), women make up 48% of the total workforce of the United States, compared to 24% of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) based workforce. The United States Department of Commerce (2011b) reports that STEM occupations are projected to grow by 17% from 2008 to 2018, nearly twice as much as non-STEM occupations (9.8%). Even as more women pursue higher education degrees and are steadily increasing their numbers in the workforce, the number of women in STEM occupations has stayed at 24%. Furthermore, based on all the women who graduate with a STEM degree, 26% go on to work in a STEM occupation, compared to 40% of men. (2011a).
Gender Bias
Why there is such a skew in gender representation within STEM based occupations is a controversial topic. Shelley Correll, the director of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford, believes that gender stereotypes influence emerging career aspirations. She argues that, “as a minimum, individuals must believe they have the skill necessary for a given career in order to develop preferences for that career.” (2010)
Correll argues that stereotypes influence a person’s self-assessments in two ways:
- Negative stereotypes lead to decreased task performance
- Negative stereotypes lead individuals to judge their performance by a harsher standard.
If you tell a person that they are bad at something, they will eventually start to doubt themselves and lose aspiration for that career. Studies show how women exposed to a stereotype on spatial ability have a 14% drop in accuracy compared to women who are exposed to a positive stereotype regarding the same task (Wraga, Helt, Jacobs and Sullivan, 2006). If gender bias is capable of having such severe effects on career aspirations, is it possible that society is instilling these beliefs in young girls that are just starting their educational career?
Research suggest that gender bias begins at infancy where newborns are exposed to what it means to be male or female by their parents (Lauer & Lauer, 1994; Santrock, 1994; Kaplan, 1991). Parents unconsciously treat their children differently based on their gender. This includes the types of toys, behavioral expectations, and preference in colors for toys, furniture, clothing, etc (Thorne, 1993). According to the American Association of University Women (1995), “Children start to define their gender identities in their preschool years”. In most preschools, you may find girls partaking in dramatic play, while boy’s play with building blocks. Parents and teachers, unknowingly promote these activities, “girls are praised when they play with dolls while boys are likely to be ignored when displaying nurturing behavior.”. As a result, children are capable of denying their own reality when it does not conform to their gender expectations. An example of such a denial was found with a child whose mother is a doctor, yet stated that “only” men are doctors (Sheldon, 1990).
Studies show that a parent’s perception of a child’s academic potential is more influential then the child’s actual grades (Frome, Eccles 1998). Eccles (1983) believes that these influences could lead to occupational choices later in life. If parental influence is so potent during these formative years, then how could this be used positively to influence change?
Much of this change will need to come from the foundational experiences that parents expose their young girls to in early childhood. During these years, much of these experiences take the form of play. Play helps in engaging a child’s imagination, socialization, cognition, emotion (Nicolopoulou, 1993), and allows for “memories of awakening to the existence of some potential, aroused by early experiences of self and world“ (Cobb 1977 pg. 3).
Interactions should not be guided color coding schemes such as pink and lavender alternatives (Thorne, 1993) to STEM based toys, or by the placement of Dora’s face on the box to make it socially acceptable for a girl to play with. They should be guided by allowing young girls the opportunity to experience these topics in ways that are meaningful.
Communal Preference
Taking another perspective on bias, there are studies that indicate how various differences in male and female preference may be to blame for female’s lack of interest in STEM occupations. An example of this is brought up in a study (Diekman., Clark, Johnston, Brown., & Steinberg 2011) which found women to prefer communal goals more then men. This same study showed that STEM based careers are portrayed as individualistic, for example a programmer and his computer, or chemist and his test tube. A simple switch in description, which highlighted collaborative aspects of the career (e.g. “Mentor new members of my statistics group in doing data analysis.”), females showed a measurable increase to STEM based activities compared to males. This indicates that, outside of gender stereotypes, there are also STEM misconceptions that would need to be ratified.
Lack of Role Models
An unfortunate by-product of having a lack of women in STEM occupations, is a lack of female role models. In higher education, it was found that the more female graduate students in STEM programs increased the popularity of STEM course selection for female undergraduate students (Griffith 2010). Female faculty in introductory STEM based classes showed increased grades in female college students (Carl, Page & West 2009), and same-sex mentorship of graduate students has shown to increase productivity in both male and female participants, compared to cross-sex mentorship (Goldstein, 1979). A separate study of middle school students showed that periodically bringing in female role models from around the community had a positive effect on attitudes towards women in STEM field for both girls and boys (Smith 1996).
With a skewed ratio between women and males in STEM based occupations, it is suffice to say that the female voice may unintentionally get drowned out, by their male counterparts based on sheer quantity of males. Increasing the amount female led mentorships, will take time with that caveat that more women pursue STEM careers. Till then, we need to offer women a megaphone and a soapbox slightly higher then males to reach the minds of the young girls they are trying to help. Their has been attempts at this, most notably Ada Lovelace Day, named after the first female computer scientist in history. During this day, female STEM professionals are asked to write female empowering messages on their personal blogs. Females from around the world have joined the mission, which could be found
In Search of Meaning
Evidence shows that children find some STEM subjects ‘dull’, ‘boring’, ‘cold’ and ‘impersonal’. This leads to a poor affective dimension in STEM education (Alsop and Watts 2000). Campbell states that, “conventional science education does us all a disservice, misrepresenting the nature of science and at the same time alienating learners. There is a great need to reestablish the human-ness [sic] of science.”(Campbell 1999, pg. 4) This may be due to formal learning environments, such as traditional classroom instruction, attempting to present new content in settings that are not representative of how the knowledge is used in everyday life. Unfortunately real world problems are typically not as well defined as those found in a text book (Choi & Hannafin, pg. 56). Looking at problems in such an unauthentic way can ultimately result in unsuccessful transfer of the knowledge to real world applications (Choi & Hannafin, pg. 53).
Summary
All of the arguments above, bring to focus the importance to creating authentic experiences, offering female mentorships, opportunities for cooperative interaction and eliminating both gender and occupational stereotypes. Each have shown that on their own, they result in negative consequences towards the retention of young women pursuing STEM based occupations. Instead, we should focus on their identity, self-esteem and confidence to foster both their personal and professional classroom identity (Day and Leitch 2001). Avoiding the topic by promoting special exception, will only bring about new gender expectation to society which feed into the biases that we are attempting to diminish (i.e. construction blocks are okay for young girls if they are pink and lavender).
Schank (2000) would describe the expectations that occur as “scripts”, which people use to predict outcomes. The script of a young girl not being able to pursue STEM activities is an example of a culturally common story, much like how he describes an insurance sales man being boring before they even says a word. In order to “flip this script”, we need to offer an opportunity for young girls and their families to consume, create and share new stories with the world.
When thinking about the distribution of a message, George Eliot believes that “…art is the nearest thing to life; it is a mode of amplifying experience and extending our contact with our fello-men beyond the bounds of our personal lot. (1856/1963, pg. 270) This quote brings to questions, “could art or other media be enough to ignite social change?” According to Harriet Bleech Stowe’s book Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852/1994), which has been said to have a major influence on changing public opinion about slavery – yes.
More recently Macmillan Children’s Book Publishing and Animal Asia have teamed up to promote Moon Bear, a children’s book that has been used to address the address the thousands of moon bears that are cruelly “milked” on a daily basis for their bile, which is used in traditional Chinese medicine. Al Gore is also betting on media, as a way to help
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