While among men every fourth student (24.3%) planned to study STEM, among women only every tenth student (10.1%) was interested in STEM studies. doi: 10.1007/s35834-014-0111-y, Aeschlimann, B., Herzog, W., and Makarova, E. (2016). This study contributes to the line of research on the gender stereotype of science by analyzing the gender-related image of three school subjects. (2002, p. 44) reported that even women who had selected math-intensive majors had difficulties in associating math with themselves because they associated math with the male gender. doi: 10.1037/edu0000005, Miller, D. I., Nolla, K. M., Eagly, A. H., and Uttal, D. H. (2018). And at present, less than 30 percent of researchers worldwide are women. Psychol. Thus, for young women as well as for young men with a non-STEM career choice, math has a highly masculine image. Selbstkonzept und Berufswahl. National differences in gender-science stereotypes predict national sex differences in science and math achievement. Finally, Generalized Linear Models (GzLM) were estimated (McCullagh and Nelder, 1989) to shed light on the impact of the gender image of math and science on the likelihood that female and male students aspire for a STEM field of study. It provides, moreover, more refined knowledge on the impact of gender stereotypical perception of math and science on female and male secondary school students' choice to enroll in a STEM university degree program. The Hired study also found that 60% of the time men are offered more for the same role at the same company and 61% of the time women ask for lower salaries than men. 89, 1943–1955. Accordingly, approval by an ethics authority was not required. Here is how your organization can take action to bridge the gap. FSO (2013). Technol. Sex Roles 69, 58–71. J. Educ. 5. Informed consent was implied through survey completion; therefore, they were not required to provide written consent to participate. Alien or alike? Eur. Build Visible Steps Towards Inclusivity Actively prioritizing an inclusive workplace culture is the first step toward closing the gender gap in STEM fields. = +6) and low masculinity (high discrepancy between the profiles man and subject; min. *Correspondence: Elena Makarova, elena.makarova@unibas.ch, Front. Accordingly, the masculinity index expresses the differentiation between high masculinity (low discrepancy between the profiles man and subject; max. doi: 10.1787/9789264179370-en, OECD (2017). Educ. The problem: When it comes to teaching and learning STEM, … doi: 10.1037/11706-004, Nagy, G., Trautwein, U., Baumert, J., Köller, O., and Garrett, J. Fortunately, some light can be seen in the darkness. Our findings also suggest that gender-science stereotypes of math and science can potentially influence young women's and men's aspirations to enroll in a STEM major at university by showing that a less pronounced masculine image of science has the potential to increase the likelihood of STEM career aspirations. Thirdly, we should note that our study applies an explicit assessment of masculinity connotations of school subjects by using a semantic differential with 25 opposite semantic meanings. Front. OECD (2012). At the same time, female participants are more likely to associate math and science more strongly with the male gender and masculine traits than with the female gender and feminine traits. Especially the academic aspirations of women who strongly identified as female were affected by the gender stereotypic image of science (Lane et al., 2012). Sex segregation by field of study in 44 countries. Int. Globally, female students’ enrolment is particularly low in ICT (3 per cent), natural science, mathematics and statistics (5 per cent) and in engineering, manufacturing and construction (8 per cent).”. Interestingly, Massachusetts' gender gap of 15.6% was one of the smallest for STEM degrees. Moreover, the perceived closeness between the self and a school subject was predictive for youths' career choice intentions (Hannover and Kessels, 2004; Kessels et al., 2006). Fitting into the stereotype: how gender-stereotyped perceptions of prototypic peers relate to liking for school subjects. Another study among school children and university students by Weinreich-Haste (1981) assessed the gender image of different academic subjects using ratings on a six-point masculine-feminine scale. doi: 10.4324/9781315545899, Good, J. J., Woodzicka, J. Generalized Linear Models, 2nd Edn. The Measurement of Meaning. doi: 10.1007/s11218-017-9408-8, Hannover, B., and Kessels, U. Read AAUW’s research report for ways we can stop steering girls away from math and science, and make these field more welcoming for women. 94, 617–639. “The image of science,” in The Missing Half: Girls and Science Education, ed A. Kelly (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press), 216–229. However, the impact of the gender image of school science subjects on young people's career choice has not yet been analyzed. With regard to sex, the percentage of female students (54.1%) was somewhat higher than that of male students (45.9%). Educ. Handbook of Psychology: Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. Gender and course selection in upper secondary education: effects of academic self-concept and intrinsic value. Educ. Math–gender stereotypes in elementary school children. 20, 309–323. Following this notion, our study aimed to analyze the gender stereotype of school science subjects among female and male students and the impact of gender-science stereotypes on the career aspirations of young people. doi: 10.1002/sce.20399, BlaŽev, M., Karabegović, M., Burušić, J., and Selimbegović, L. (2017). 82, 766–779. The participants were on average 19 years old (SD = 1.0). (2009). The gender gap in pay has narrowed since 1980, but it has remained relatively stable over the past 15 years or so. Despite female students outperforming their male counterparts for the top grades this year, after two years of boys doing better, the gender gap for certain STEM subjects has increased. Motivational beliefs, values, and goals. The second model was estimated for male students [Likelihood Ratio x(1,267)2 = 9.22, p ≤ 0.01, Pearson-Chi-Square 73.90 (66, 267) = 1.12]. Evidence for the social role theory of stereotype content: observations of groups' roles shape stereotypes. The image of science among secondary school students and teachers. Exploring teachers' and students' gender role bias and students' confidence in STEM fields. The stereotypical computer scientist: gendered media representations as a barrier to inclusion for women. 61, 99–103. Sci. A., and Wingfield, L. C. (2010). New York, NY: Routledge. Sci. How to change students' images of science and technology. Soc. Behav. (2006). Soc. Acad. Published 11 February 2019 doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-6772-0_17, Rosser, S. V. (2012). If the image of the three subjects has strong masculine connotations, career choice is unlikely to be within the STEM field. According to the theoretical framework of Gottfredson (2002, 2005), occupational aspirations are incorporated in the individual self-image developed during socialization from early childhood through adolescence. Table 3. 67, 255–265. IBM SPSS Statistics 23 Step by Step: A Simple Guide and Reference. |, The Gender Stereotype of Math and Science, Gender Differences in the Perception of Gender-Science Stereotypes, Gender-Science Stereotype and Career Aspirations in STEM, https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/de/home/statistiken/bildung-wissenschaft/bildungsabschluesse/tertiaerstufe-hochschulen/universitaere.assetdetail.5626778.html, https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/de/home/statistiken/kataloge-datenbanken/publikationen.assetdetail.349122.html, www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/de/home/statistiken/kataloge-datenbanken/tabellen.assetdetail.4762125.html, https://www.pxweb.bfs.admin.ch/pxweb/de/px-x-1503020200_102/px-x-1503020200_102/px-x-1503020200_102.px, https:www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2017.pdf, Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). Masculinity index of chemistry, math, and physics. The study was carried out following the ethical principles and codes of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Bern, which are based on international ethics codes (e.g., of the American Sociological Association and of the American Psychological Association). Renfrow, D. G., and Howard, J. Offering a counterbalance to gender stereotypes in STEM-based subjects, the researchers suggest a change in test styles and hope that educators understand that cognitive tests do not only measure how smart someone is, but that they also measure non-cognitive skills, such as perseverance. Moreover, our results suggest that among female students a strong masculine image of math and science decreases the likelihood of choosing a STEM major at university. An explicit measurement of the gender stereotype of science subjects was chosen over an implicit stereotype test, because the study focuses on the salient gender stereotypes of those subjects (Millon et al., 2003, p. 356). The lowest proportion of women is in the fields of informatics (10.4%) and technology (8.5%), whereas in the fields of chemistry and life-sciences the proportion of women is considerably higher (43.7%) (FSO, 2019a). 20, 929–945. Science 126, 384–390. Closing the Gap. Thus, rise in gender equity in education can also promote boys' academic development. The Gender Gap in Engineering. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0809921106. Given that previous research has often focused on gender-science stereotypes of science in general or on stereotypical beliefs about single STEM disciplines, our study contributes to previous research by simultaneously analyzing the gender stereotype of different school science subjects—chemistry, math, and physics—among female and male students. The persistence of gendered paths in career choices has recently been reflected in the current Global Gender Gap Report of the World Economic Forum (WEF), which states that on average men are underrepresented in the fields of education, health and welfare whereas women are underrepresented in the STEM fields (WEF, 2017, p. 31). Gottfredson's theory of circumscription, compromise, and self-creation. Ramsey, L. R. (2017). The attribution of masculinity to the three science subjects among female and male students was subjected to a two-way ANOVA (school subject and students' sex). What do students think scientists look like? Psychol. 18, 585–609. doi: 10.1348/000709905X59961, Kessels, U., and Taconis, R. (2012). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. If girls develop weaker preferences for science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), it can contribute to macrolevel gender inequalities in income and status. Charley Rogers. (2005). Finally, the paper discusses ways of changing the image of math and science in the context of secondary education in order to overcome the disparities between females and males in STEM. 102, 335–345. A review of Gottfredson's career choice theory among secondary school students]. Natl. From education to workplace hiring and retention, the barriers that prevent women from successful careers in STEM are well-documented. College-educated women finally reach gender equality in the US workforce, International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The data originated from a cross-sectional study among 1'364 Swiss secondary school students who were close to obtaining their matriculation diploma. Among young men there were no significant differences in the attribution of masculinity to the subject physics between male students who had chosen STEM and those who had chosen another study field. Proc. Broad Support for Closing the STEM Gender Gap. doi: 10.1111/j.1949-8594.1995.tb15804.x, Jones, B., Ruff, C., and Paretti, M. (2013). (2010) suggest that proximal factors such as quality of teaching mediate the effect of gender inequality on math achievement. J. Gen. Sci. With regard to the sex differences in the attribution of masculinity, our analysis of variance yielded significant differences between female and male students F(1, 1, 355) = 63.20, p ≤ 0.001. It has been demonstrated that further school-related factors, such as the instructional design of science classes (Aeschlimann et al., 2016), teachers' support and encouragement (Aeschlimann et al., 2015) as well as family-related factors, and also peers can considerably influence the career-choice decisions of young people (Makarova et al., 2016b). J. Pers. These findings are interesting in light of students' preference for their subject of specialization in secondary schools in Switzerland (FSO, 2019b) showing that chemistry is chosen almost equally often by boys and girls, whereas math and physics are largely avoided by girls as subjects of specialization. All other fields of study were assigned to the category “non-STEM study choice.” The multivariate analyses were conducted with the dichotomous variable STEM field study choice (STEM field study choice = category 1; non-STEM study choice = reference category 0). Among those are the Draw-A-Scientist Test (DAST) (e.g., Chambers, 1983; Finson, 2002; Scherz and Oren, 2006), the Implicit Association Test (IAT) (e.g., Greenwald et al., 1998; Nosek et al., 2002, 2009), explicit stereotype assessments using attitude questionnaires (e.g., Kessels, 2005), semantic differential assessments (e.g., Herzog et al., 1998; Makarova and Herzog, 2015), and individual or group interviews (e.g., Archer et al., 2010). The interaction effect between two factors school subject and students' sex was non-significant F(2, 1, 355) = 2.34, p = ns. Women in STEM statistics - Conclusion . doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1464, Hand, S., Rice, L., and Greenlee, E. (2017). Immunologist Shruti Naik is … Masculinity index of chemistry and career aspirations. Am. J. DeLamater, and A. Herzog, W., Labudde, P., Neuenschwander, M. P., Violi, E., and Gerber, C. (1998). This year’s A-level results show a clear gender gap in the uptake of STEM subjects. Masculinity index of physics and career aspirations. Res. Understanding women's educational and occupational choices. Soc. doi: 10.1002/tea.21462, Steffens, M. C., Jelenec, P., and Noack, P. (2010). Regarding the career aspirations of young women, our study supports the notion that stereotypical beliefs about math and science prevent young women from entering a STEM career (Lane et al., 2012; Ramsey, 2017). doi: 10.1111/cdev.13039. (Cover: Getty Images/The Denver Post/Andy Cross) For easier interpretation, this value was reversed; a negative value was transformed into a positive value and a positive value into a negative value. = −6). Closing the STEM gender gap means educators not only have to challenge stereotypes they must also think about gender biases they may be inadvertently expressing in their language. Within the group of female students, the attribution of masculinity to the three school subjects does not differ significantly, meaning that female students rated all subjects similarly as strongly masculine [95% CIs: chemistry [0.19, 0.36], math [0.30, 0.46], and physics [0.23, 0.39]]. Predicting gender-STEM stereotyped beliefs among boys and girls from prior school achievement and interest in STEM school subjects. 150, 132–147. Policy Report. The social role theory (Eagly and Wood, 2012) suggests that gender roles and their occupants are highly visible in everyday contexts and that gender stereotypes emerge in response to the observation of women and men in different social roles and in role-linked activities related to occupational choices (Koenig and Eagly, 2014). “We find that in the UK, fewer than 20 per cent of female students are pursuing engineering or computer science, and fewer than 40 per cent are doing mathematics,” FEE explains. Personal. The effects of gender stereotypic and counter-stereotypic textbook images on science performance. Psychol. From our Women in STEM statistics, it is clear that there is still more to be done to reduce the gender gap in STEM fields. OECD (2006). Rev. Makarova, E., Aeschlimann, B., and Herzog, W. (2016a). Gottfredson, L. S. (2002). “The semantic differential and attitude research,” in Attitude Measurement, ed. These three science subjects were chosen because females are strongly underrepresented in math and physics within the educational sector and career fields, whereas chemistry has a more balanced gender ratio. Neuchâtel: FSO. Eine Überprüfung der Berufswahltheorie von Gottfredson an Sekundarschülern [Self-concept and career choice. New York, NY: NYU Press. The two teamed up at the Girls Exploring Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (GESTEM) event hosted by the Society of Women Engineers in Denver in 2016. Res. doi: 10.1016/j.ijer.2016.06.004, Archer, J., and MacRae, M. (1991). J. Psychol. J. Educ. However, the more female scientist appeared only in drawings by young children, but science was still associated with men among older children (Miller et al., 2018). A study among primary school students illustrated that stereotypical beliefs that STEM school subjects are more suitable for boys than for girls were more strongly endorsed by boys than by girls. (2010). Likewise, a study among students and faculty reported that agentic traits are more strongly associated with success in science than communal traits, discouraging women from pursuing a science career (Ramsey, 2017). Applying Gottfredson's theory, the significant impact of the gender image of an occupation on the process of career choice was confirmed in a number of studies (Ratschinski, 2009; Bubany and Hansen, 2011). It seems that male participants show more endorsement of the gender-science stereotype by regarding STEM subjects as more suitable for boys and attributing less abilities in the STEM disciplines to the female gender compared to the male gender. Stuttgart: Kröner. The student sample was divided into groups, with each group completing the semantic differential for one subject term and for the man term: chemistry and man (n = 406), math and man (n = 512) and physics and man (n = 446). Finally, the most recent meta-analysis of five decades of U.S. DAST studies based on 78 studies (N = 20,860) among children grades K-12, shows a growth in children's depictions of female scientists in later decades. J. Sci. J. Pers. Finally, previous research has shown that school science subjects differ with respect to their gender-related connotation, and indicating that chemistry has the least pronounced masculine image among secondary school students. Psychol. So why so few female scientists then? doi: 10.4135/9781446249222.n49, Eccles, J. S. (1994). Based on a survey of about 3,50,000 participants in 66 nations, this study concluded that explicit and implicit national gender-science stereotypes were weaker in countries with a higher female enrollment in tertiary science education. Masculinity ( low discrepancy between the profiles man and subject ; max clear gender gap statistics had. Using the Kruskal-Wallis statistical test ( P < 0.05 ) to mitigate unequal cell sizes: www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/de/home/statistiken/kataloge-datenbanken/tabellen.assetdetail.4762125.html accessed... — two of the puzzle gender: sex Similarities and differences and the corresponding subject term and,. What is interesting is that even young women ( Grant no appear to be unemployed have., elena.makarova @ unibas.ch, Front gender differences in science courses relates to the gender! 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