{"id":41596,"date":"2018-01-07T05:00:56","date_gmt":"2018-01-07T10:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=41596"},"modified":"2018-01-06T18:54:56","modified_gmt":"2018-01-06T23:54:56","slug":"now-we-know-how-to-get-more-women-in-the-stem-fields","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2018\/01\/07\/now-we-know-how-to-get-more-women-in-the-stem-fields\/","title":{"rendered":"Now we know how to get more women in the STEM fields"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toni Airaksinen<\/a> reviews the findings of Professors Parson and Ozaki, who believe they’ve identified the key factors holding back young women from studying STEM subjects:<\/p>\n

Two professors believe that \u201cmasculine STEM ideals\u201d\u2014like \u201casking good questions\u201d and \u201cputting school first\u201d \u2014 are to blame for the lack of women in math and science courses.<\/p>\n

Laura Parson, a professor at Auburn University, and Casey Ozaki, who teaches education at the University of North Dakota, advanced the notion in an article published in the latest issue of the NASPA Journal About Women in Higher Education<\/em>, noting that women are not only \u201cless likely to major in STEM fields\u201d than are men, but those who do study science, technology, engineering, and math are less likely to graduate than their male classmates.<\/p>\n

Together, Parson and Ozaki interviewed eight female students majoring in math or physics to learn more about why women struggle in STEM. From their interviews, the professors learned that many women feel pressure to conform to so-called \u201cmasculine\u201d norms.<\/p>\n

According to the professors, these masculine norms include \u201casking good questions,\u201d \u201ccapacity for abstract thought and rational thought processes,\u201d \u201cmotivation,\u201d the expectation that students would be \u201cindependent\u201d thinkers, and a relatively low fear of failure.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis requirement that the average student asks questions and speaks in class is based on the typical undergraduate man,\u201d they contend.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for the female students, many of them indicated difficulty embodying these traits, reporting that they tend to ask fewer questions in class than do their male peers, and have noticed that other women in their classes share the same inclination.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what’s to be done? How can we ensure that female students significantly outnumber men in the STEM departments as they now do in most other university departments?<\/p>\n

Parson and Ozaki spell out a few recommendations for STEM programs, saying for instance that academic departments should \u201credefine success by changing expectations,\u201d such as letting women write down questions instead of asking them out-loud. They also recommended that more women are hired, but notably did not mention any concerns over merit.<\/p>\n

They also declare that \u201can important aspect of changing the masculine nature of STEM is diversifying STEM fields,\u201d and suggest that hiring more female faculty members could lead to increased enrollment of female students because \u201cwomen faculty have been found to increase participation, feelings of inclusion and belonging, and women\u2019s perceptions of identity compatibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Achieving \u201ca critical mass of women\u201d in STEM, the professors predict, would serve to weaken \u201cthe masculine STEM discourses of individualism and competition\u201d while promoting \u201cconnectivity and relatedness,\u201d which they believe will help to create the sense of \u201ccommunity\u201d desired by the students they interviewed.<\/p>\n

\u201cImproving the chilly climate in STEM fields requires revising the STEM institution from one that is masculine to one that is inclusive for non-men, non-White students,\u201d they conclude.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I mean, it’s obvious now that they’ve spelled it out for us, isn’t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toni Airaksinen reviews the findings of Professors Parson and Ozaki, who believe they’ve identified the key factors holding back young women from studying STEM subjects: Two professors believe that \u201cmasculine STEM ideals\u201d\u2014like \u201casking good questions\u201d and \u201cputting school first\u201d \u2014 are to blame for the lack of women in math and science courses. Laura Parson, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,16,15],"tags":[303,764,43],"class_list":["post-41596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-science","category-technology","tag-sexism","tag-university","tag-women"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-aOU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41597,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41596\/revisions\/41597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}