The full impact of the Information Revolution – the moniker for the impact of technology on the modern global economy – is still a subject of inquiry and debate. Still, it is clear that careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) will be vital to the United States’ economic prosperity in the economy that emerges from the revolution, as will be the skills of creativity, inquiry, and collaboration inherent in them. Accordingly, the United States’ government has spent much of the past ten years advocating for increased STEM curriculum in K-12 schools with an explicit focus on preparing our students for the economy of their future ((National Academy of Sciences, Committee on Science, Engineering & Public Policy, 2007; U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2006; U.S. Department of Education, 2006). Certainly, tailoring our schools to best prepare students for their future is the paramount responsibility of the education system, so increased STEM education is appropriate.
Problematically, STEM fields continue to be male-dominated. The United States Department of Commerce reported (Beede et al. 2011) that women hold less than a quarter of STEM jobs, disproportionately low amount of STEM undergraduate degrees, and are less likely to pursue a STEM career after obtaining such a degree than their male counterparts. Of the STEM degrees obtained by women, more than half are in the physical and life sciences, with only 18% in engineering. In contrast, almost half of men with STEM degrees pursued engineering, while less than a third were in the sciences. These numbers correlate with a much higher percentage of women who earn STEM degrees but work in education or other non-STEM fields. In these fields, women make on average 14% lower than their male counterparts, which, while problematic, is less than the 21% discrepancy seen in non-STEM job (Beede et al. 2011).
Eliminating this gender gap in STEM fields is necessary, both for moral and also economic reasons. The innovations emerging from these fields will, hopefully, help all people take advantage of new technologies. However, “needs and desires unique to women may be overlooked” (AAUW 2010) in design processes because of the absence of women. What’s more, encouraging women to join these fields will be a net gain in the STEM workforce, an inherently good outcome if these fields are as vital to our future as we presume. Furthermore, as a nation founded upon and thereby committed to equality, we ought to eliminate pay inequities that have plagued our economy since women joined the workforce. Although women in STEM fields statistically earn less than their male colleagues, these fields in general yield higher salaries than many others, resulting in a net reduction of the wage gap overall (AAUW 2010).
To remedy these problems, we must first consider the extent to which these divides exist as a product of nature versus that of nurture. In her 1996 study, Wilder found that nature – that is, physiological differences – are exacerbated by external factors like interaction with teachers, curriculum, and societal stereotypes (Wilder 20; Solomon 118). Hence, for STEM education to be effective, teachers and curriculum authors must consider the biases inherent in their behavior and content, respectively. Additionally, teachers and their curricula could be designed to accommodate physiological differences, thereby accounting for both nature and nurture.
Cause and Effect
Girls are directed away from STEM careers early in their education. This guidance is often unintentional and unconscious (Sadker, Sadker, and Zittleman 2009).
Teacher feedback can dissuade girls from pursuing STEM subjects by implicitly acknowledging pre-existing perceptions of STEM as masculine or, at least, not feminine, as well as boring or irrelevant. Through the study, Anderson (2009) concludes that girls are choosing subjects other than information and communications technology (ICT) because the ICT classes they had taken previously were boring. They also did not consider the courses to be helpful in preparing them for their future careers. Despite popular belief to this effect, the girls did not acknowledge that the purported male-dominance of the classrooms or the stereotypes of these subject as masculine played a significant role in their choices (Anderson 2009). These findings align with earlier studies that indicate that students generally form their attitudes toward computers by eighth grade (Solomon 2002; Sadker and Sadker 1997).
Until recently, girls have also been discouraged from developing more positive attitudes towards computers at home, especially due to the sort of games available. Girls’ are discouraged from use of computers by the lack of “collaborating activities, games with simulation, strategy, and interaction” in them. Instead, they tend to find games “that are designed for competition and that focus on death and destruction” (Solomon 2002; AAUW 2000).
Denissen (2007) argued that a student’s interest in a subject boosts her confidence in it, which together boost achievement. Teacher influence significantly influenced math and science confidence and interest, and extracurricular STEM activities significantly boosted science confidence and interest. (Heaverlo 2011; Denissen 2007). In addition to teacher support and extracurricular activities, STEM curriculum, pedagogy, and activities should embrace four considerations:
Technology in context, not just for technology’s sake… Technology to solve genuine problems… Information technology for communication not just information… Technology for design not just consumption. (Solomon 2000)
Contextualizing STEM curricula in social good, along with availability to girls in and out of school with adequate teacher support should yield significantly more interest in STEM careers among women.
Considerable energy and resources have been expended to remedy these problems. Booz Allen Hamilton (2012) conducted a study of NASA’s Summer-of-Innovation (SoI) program, an out-of-school network of organizations that promotes STEM to students and teachers nationwide. The program focused on middle schoolers, which is appropriate according to the aforementioned finding that students solidify their views of computers by eighth grade. The report identified 50 best practices, ranging from advice for program planning to program assessment. The recommendations align with the research findings detailed above. For example, they report on one organization that represents the best practice of creating a “supportive STEM learning environment with high expectations for students”:
One OST organization encourages its students to experiment and make “big, interesting mistakes” so that they can act on their intellectual curiosity and learn how to take risks in problem-solving. At the same time, this strategy of engaging students includes pushing students to succeed because creating this expectation helps communicate to girls that they are perfectly capable of pursuing STEM throughout their education and careers. This creates a learning environment that is both supportive and nurturing yet sets the bar high for girls in order to encourage them to succeed. (Booz Allen Hamilton 2012)
This sort of program is designed to accommodate the sort of learning girls prefer by being oriented toward problem-solving, offers access to all students who want it, and are engineered specifically to increase teacher support for students as they pursue STEM fields. Other best practices based on STEM out-of-school organizations identify the efficacy of providing young girls mentors who are women working in STEM fields. Others are praised for using single-gender STEM groups so activities can be tailored to gender-based learning styles and preferences (Booz Allen Hamilton 2012). Organizations report that they are embracing these best practices as they expand and improve their STEM for girls programs, including the Girl Scouts, the Center for STEM Education for Girls, Girl Start, and dozens of others (Girlscouts.org)
These very effective programs detailed in the report are out-of-school activities, however. In school, less focus has been paid to increasing girls’ interest in STEM specifically, as opposed to STEM interest generally. Recently, the US DoE issued a report suggesting ways that science curriculum can be developed to increase girls’ interest and confidence in the subject (Halpern et al. 2007). However, it was difficult to find any STEM curricula that reports to have been designed with girls in mind in coeducational schools. Problematically, the classrooms primarily responsible for discouraging girls from STEM careers with negative teacher feedback, linear curriculum without a social context, and social reinforcement guiding girls to other subjects occur during the day in coed schools.
Hence, deliberate efforts must be made to translate the success of out-of-school programs designed to encourage girls in STEM fields into similar encouragement in school. Professional development increasing teachers’ awareness of the ways in which they might reinforce stereotypes associated with girls and STEM, more “real world” content and curricula that also involves problem-solving, earlier introductions to engaging applications of STEM, and explicit acknowledgement of the value of STEM education might help to make these out-of-school programs less necessary. In turn, we may narrow or eliminate the gender gap in STEM fields over the next several decades, serving our economic and moral ambitions.
(Note: This is adapted from a paper that I submitted to a graduate school class at Teachers College.)
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