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What explains the gap? Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the tests for the O.E.C.D., says different countries offer different incentives for learning science and
by jerrya 14y ago
What explains the gap? Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the tests for the O.E.C.D., says different countries offer different incentives for learning science and math. In the United States, he said, boys are more likely than girls to “see science as something that affects their life.” Then there is the “stereotype threat.”
This may be true, but not for the typical given reasons, ie., because of pressure on girls to avoid science.
There is an interesting 2010 Norwegian documentary, Brainwash (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hjernevask) which explores nature vs. nurture in terms of gender preferences in Norway (and includes some of the research of Simon Baron-Cohen) that can be found on YouTube.
In that series, IIRC, and roughly paraphrasing, it was said that when people are in a culture that is on the higher end of Maslow's Pyramid, it frees up people of all genders to make their careers be reflections of what truly interests them.
In the NY Times article, it is said,
boys are more likely than girls to “see science as something that affects their life.
and
For girls in some Arab countries, education is the only way to move up the social structure,” Mr. Schleicher said. “It is one way to earn social mobility.
In Norway, the documentary tries to examine why when there is so much cultural encouragement for gender neutral behavior and gender neutral training why there is still, regardless, such an imbalance of women that go into nursing compared to men that go into nursing.
Is that because society says, "only women can be nurses?" Apparently in Norway, the answer would be no. And the researchers would claim that Norwegian culture is at such a high level in terms of satisfying people's needs, that this gender preferences reflects real innate biological preferences and not culturally learned preferences.
In the United States, my belief is that kids of all ages are discouraged from entering STEM fields.
- Aqwis 14y agoI don't think Norway is a good example. More women than men study Chemistry and Biology in Norway -- STEM isn't just mathematics and physics.
- olivier1664 14y agoIn france (500/497), if you go to Mathematics/Physics/IT it is mainly males. I suspect that Chimestry, Biology and Architecture allow to show balanced quota.
- Tichy 14y agoAt least for IT, I suspect part of the reason there are so few women is because they have better options - stay home and have kids, or do something more socially rewarding (involving interaction with other people) that earns less money (because they don't need to earn a lot of money, that's what their husbands do, or because they are smart enough to figure out that happiness is more important than money). I guess you could say "maths is hard, let's go shopping". I am aware that this is not a political correct hypothesis. I also don't have anything against women entering IT. We tend to romantizice IT because in theory a single person is free to follow their visions. Being a hacker at home working on fancy projects is indeed cool. However, most IT jobs are a drag, you spend most of your time motionless in front of a computer, more often than not in an office in the basement while the (mostly female) PR department has their offices on the top floor with a view on the skyline.
- defrost 14y agoSpeaking as someone that's spent 30 odd years wandering the intersections of mathematics, computer science, numeric engineering, geophysics, bioinformatics et al, I have a hard time recalling the last time I met anyone in the IT department that was much chop at applied mathematics. By contrast, between a third and a half of the peers that I run into are women; eg: http://65.54.113.26/Detail?entitytype=2&searchtype=2&id=1881031 http://65.54.113.26/Detail?entitytype=2&searchtype=2&... .. one woman, 91 diverse publications, most leading to working implementations of actual robots, hand sign reading vision systems, etc. I guess you could say IT is boring, let's go make robots with lasers. EDIT: I should specify I'm talking from an Australian perspective, maybe our sheilas have more of a kick arse take no prisoners attitude?
- Tichy 14y agoRobots with lasers certainly sounds more exciting than IT :-)