![]() ![]() “Students are basing their educational decisions in large part on their perceptions of a field,” Cheryan said. high schools than courses in biology, chemistry and mathematics - leaving students with little information about what those fields are like and who might be suited for them. But courses in computer science, engineering and physics are less likely to be offered and required in U.S. The gender gap in STEM interest is smaller among high school seniors at schools with stronger math and science offerings, the researchers note. Those factors decrease women’s interest in a field by signaling that they do not belong there, the researchers write.Ī lack of pre-college experience is also a factor, the paper finds. The paper identifies three main aspects of that masculine culture: stereotypes of the fields that are incompatible with how many women perceive themselves, negative stereotypes about women’s abilities and a dearth of role models. Then they winnowed the list down to the three factors most likely to explain gendered patterns in the six STEM fields - a lack of pre-college experience, gender gaps in belief about one’s abilities, and a masculine culture that discourages women from participating. The researchers analyzed more than 1,200 papers about women’s underrepresentation in STEM, and from those identified 10 factors that impact gender differences in students’ interest and participation in STEM. The UW study focused on six of the largest science and engineering fields with the most undergraduate degrees: biology, chemistry and math, which have the highest proportions of female participation, and computer science, engineering and physics, which have bigger gender gaps. Women receive more than 40 percent of undergraduate degrees in math, for example, but just 18 percent of degrees in computer science. Women now earn about 37 percent of undergraduate STEM degrees in the United States, but their representation varies widely across those fields. “This is one of the first attempts to really dig down into why women are more underrepresented in some STEM fields than others.” “There is widespread knowledge that women are underrepresented in STEM, but people tend to lump STEM fields together,” said lead author Sapna Cheryan, a UW associate professor of psychology. 12 in the journal Psychological Bulletin, the paper identifies three main factors driving the disparity - and the most powerful one, the researchers conclude, is a “masculine culture” that makes many women feel like they don’t belong. Women’s relative lack of participation in science, technology, engineering and math is well documented, but why women are more represented in some STEM areas than others is less clear.Ī new University of Washington study is among the first to address that question by comparing gender disparities across STEM fields.
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