The American Association of University Women, in a new report, weighs in on the social and environmental factors that contribute to the underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The report, titled “Why So Few?” and released today, follows a series of recent efforts to reverse that pattern, including work by colleges to support female scientists, another report on the issue from three Berkeley researchers, and a push by the National Science Foundation’s Advance program.
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9 Responses to Report Examines Why Men Outnumber Women in Science and Math
willismg - March 22, 2010 at 11:28 am
I taught in a public high school for a number of years after a career in engineering. My personal experience points to this: When students are first exposed to the rudiments of “real” math and science, that is exactly the time in their development when girls are trying desperately to be considered attractive (and less threatening) to boys. Their world becomes filled with thoughts of cheerleading and proms. Yes, even the ones who aren’t in the In Crowd. ( I certainly grant that there are many exceptions… My best student each year was frequently one of my female students)It seems that this couple of years where they want to appear non-threatening manifests itself in the “Math is hard” phase. Since this period of time is where most folks start any serious journey into these fields, this delay seems to cascade into a deficit that is self-perpetuating, and often seems insurmountable. Just one person’s opinion after 8 years of close observation of high school physics classes.
gharbisonne - March 22, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Gosh, a report from AAUW on women in the sciences. I’m sure it reeks of objectivity.
11182967 - March 22, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Part of the problem lies in the way in which we let math instructors off the hook. Over many years of teaching composition I learned that everyone outside of the English department thinks that teaching writing is easy, that everyone should be able to learn to write fairly well (after all, we all did), and that if a student shows up in a psych class and can’t already write like a psychologist the English department screwed up.On the other hand, virtually everyone, college profs included, have suckered themselves into the “math is hard” notion, often because their own math instruction wasn’t good–and their disciplines (like mine in English) let them get away with being math ignorant. This plays into the hands of the math department people who are usually even less excited about basic math instruction than the English profs are about composition. Since math is so hard, we can hardly hold them responsible for the apparent fact that even college students can’t learn it–and that education majors can’t be taught math, much less how to teach it, especially if the majority of elementary school math teachers are women who have been taught that they have “math anxiety” (or use that as excuse to avoid really learning math).We should insist that every high school graduate, and certainly college graduate learn basic math at least up through some good solid algebra, basic statistics, and, probably, some calculus. We should stop letting ourselves escape learning math–and hence letting the math profs escape teaching math to everyone. “Math anxiety” is not really a gender issue. The very fact that we all talk about it suggests that it’s an educational issue that crosses a lot of different lines. It ain’t the girls’fault.
marvchron - March 23, 2010 at 1:30 am
The previous poster (11182967) needs to remember that the plural of anecdote is not data. Your conclusions and desire to defame mathematics faculty are based on a faulty analysis. You need to gather a larger collection of information before you make outrageous statements such as “I learned that everyone outside of the English department thinks that teaching writing is easy” and “This plays into the hands of the math department people who are usually even less excited about basic math instruction than the English profs are about composition.” Where’s the proof? Questioning the motives of an entire profession needs to be based on more than opinion. Please make informed rather than simplistic judgments.
raymond_j_ritchie - March 23, 2010 at 1:47 am
Where are they getting their numbers from?I am a Plant Biologist in Australia and my impression is that at the professional level it is about 50/50 and for graduate students the majority are female.My impression is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to find good male students in the biological sciences.
phdstudent123 - March 23, 2010 at 7:25 am
willismg: The problem is high school teachers are not encourging their female students to the same degree as their male students to consider STEM careers. One of the reasons CMU was able to boost their number of female Computer Science applicants was because several of the deans personally visited high schools across the country and suggested AP Computer Science/Math teachers to encourage their female students to apply. Another problem is the way instructors teach “real” math and science. Particularly at the post-secondary level, there is a tendency among some mathematics and science instructors toward presenting theoretical concepts in a way that is completely devoid of tangible examles. Research done by Margolis and Fisher, Barker et al, and others shows that by either demonstrating theroetical concepts using tangible means or by explaining how a particular theory can be related to solving a real world problem, retaining women in STEM is greatly increased. I realize this is not possible for all theoretical concepts, but a bit of creative teaching can really go a long way toward helping address the problem.
phdstudent123 - March 23, 2010 at 7:37 am
raymond_j_ritchie:This report is referring to STEM careers in the United States, and if you read the report you can see references for all cited data on pages 97 – 107. Just about all of the cited sources are from peer-reviewed publications or from data from the National Science Foundation, National Research Council, the National Academy of Sciences.Anedcotally, I can’t speak for biology, but I can tell without a doubt that in my STEM department, of all the PhD students only 3% are women. And compared to some other departments just across the street, we have a lot of women.
alanc - March 23, 2010 at 8:00 am
I don’t know about plant biology as a subfield, but biology in general is a special case within STEM fields. It is, as I understand, the only STEM field in which women are the majority. In the rest of the STEM fields, I don’t think we even come close to parity. So raymond_j_ritchie’s impression is no doubt entirely accurate for his field, but can’t be generalized to the rest of the STEM disciplines.
willismg - March 23, 2010 at 9:31 am
phdstudent–Thanks for your observations. Much of what you say is certainly true, in my experience. But the problem is also exacerbated by the dearth of truly knowledgable STEM teachers at the secondary level. Most are adequate at doing high school physics, say, but have no real meaningful understanding of the theoretical underpinnings. This makes them quite good at doing the same problems from the text that they’ve done year in and year out, but their students get to college with little to no real meat.In my classes, I like to think that it was gender-neutral, and that my graduate education in physics gave me sufficient understanding to come up with relevant, tangible examples and demonstrations. Like I say, many of my most sucessful former students were women who went on to (and were successful at) some of the best schools we have. So quite possibly what you say is the real deal.I also was very encouraging to all my students to apply at the best universities we have (CMU MIT, Georgia Tech, etc.) to offer. So I agree with the CMU approach. But since most secondary teachers would be incapable of doing so themselves, and a kind of arrogance has crept into them as the teachers of the “hard subjects”, they tend to believe that virtually none of their students could make it at that level, so they don’t tend to encourage them.My advantage, for what it’s worth, is that I’ve personally been involved at that level, and can therefore give accurate assessments to my students of their real possibilitis. As the CMU folks indicate, many could do it if only they take the chance.