I found the following excerpt particularly interesting:
There was only one classroom experience that had a uniquely strong impact on female students: the explicit discussion of under-representation of women in science. This isn’t just highlighting women scientists like Marie Curie but instead talking directly about the fact that there are few women in physics. Female students who had experienced these discussions in their high school classes had significantly stronger physics identities. And further, these discussions had no impact on male students. In other words, for students who experienced explicit discussion of female under-representation in physics the potential physics career gap was decreased.
1 comment:
This connects to the same research about stereotype threat. If you discuss stereotype threat with female students, the actual threat is diminished. This is one of the pieces of research highlighted in the AAUW Why So Few report: http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/whysofew.cfm. So go ahead...talk about it in class!!
Post a Comment