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Does gender matter in science education?

Michel CaillotUniversité René Descartes - Paris 5

(Sorbonne)

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TIMSS • 4th grade• 8th grade• final year of secondary school

• Permanent features through ages:

– Male students have higher mean science achievement in earth science and physical science since 4th grade.

– No gender difference in life science and environmental issues

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Some evolutions

• Gender differences increase from 4th-grade to 12th-grade particularly in the physical sciences.

• Positive images of science and scientists decrease from 4th- grade to the final year of secondary school whatever the gender.

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TIMSS survey (3rd-4th grades)

• Substantial achievement differences among the 25 participating countries on the TIMSS science test.

• Boys had significantly higher mean science achievement than girls except in 9 countries where the differences are not statistically significant.

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3rd- and 4th-grades

• Differences favouring boys in science are substantially more pronounced than in the TIMSS mathematics results

• The gender difference is much less pervasive at 3rd and 4th grades than at 7th and 8th grades.

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Content areas (3rd- and 4th-grades)

• Advantages for boys in earth science and physical science.

• In life science and for the items covering environmental issues and the nature of science, girls and boys had similar performances.

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TIMSS survey (7th & 8th grades)

• Statistically significant differences favouring boys with boys averaging 20 or more points higher than girls in 12 countries.

• In only seven countries there are no statistically significant differences in science achievement between boys and girls in both grades.

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7th and 8th grades

• Pervasive difference favouring boys in

science is substantially more pronounced

than in the TIMSS mathematics results for 7th

and 8th grades, which indicates an

international pattern of gender differences

favouring males but shows few significant

differences for individual countries

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Content areas (7th and 8th grades)

• Advantages for boys in earth science, physics, and chemistry

• Girls and boys had similar performances at both grades in life science and for the items covering environmental issues and the nature of science.

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Gender differences in liking a specific content area

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7th and 8th grades

• Gender differences differ across subject areas

• Girls dislike more physical sciences than boys do.

• No significant gender differences about liking or disliking biological science.

• This corresponds with the relative performance of boys and girls on the life science and physical sciences items.

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TIMSS Final year of secondary school

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• In many countries female students report liking biological science more than male students do.

• The opposite was found in all countries for

physics, where male students report liking physics significantly more than female students do.

• On average, female students report disliking physics to some degree in nearly all countries.

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Bias in TIMSS items?

• Items favouring boys: – items involving diagrams– Items involving spatial relationships– physical science items

• Items favouring girls– health and nutrition

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International average (%correct) (statistically significant at .05 level)

Males: 75

Females : 78

8th grade

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International average (%correct)

(statistically significant at .05

level)

Males: 85

Females : 74

8th grade

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International average (%correct)

(statistically significant at .05 level)

Males: 66

Females : 72

Final year of secondary school

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Final year of secondary school

International average (%correct)

(statistically significant at .05 level)

Males: 20

Females : 11

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Progression

• In 4th-grade more girls feel it is important to do well in science and mathematics.

• In 12th-grade more boys think it is important to do well in science and mathematics

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Attitudes towards science

• More favorable attitudes of male students than those of female students whatever age levels– "masculine science": physics, computer science– "feminine science": biology, environment

• But for girls science is not related to their personal lives.

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Attitudes towards scientists• Image of scientist for young children:

"White man who carries out dangerous experiments"

Scientist Mad scientist

•Image reproduced in textbooks and cartoons

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Male model

• Male model of practice• Full-time devotion to his job• Emphasis on early achievements• Exclusive identification with science

This stereotype is

a general barrier for all girls

Few positive female role models

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Who knows Dr Wu?

Chien-Shiung Wu

1912 - 1997

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• Chien-Shiung Wu was a pioneering physicist woman. • She devised the experiment which confirmed a theory

proposed by Lee and Yang (her former students).

• Wu's experiments led physicists to discard the concept that parity was conserved. Lee and Yang received the Nobel Prize for their work but not Chien Shiung Wu.

• In recognition of her contributions to the understanding of beta decay and the weak interactions, Wu became the first woman to receive the prestigious Comstock Prize from the National Academy of Sciences. The Comstock Prize is given only once every five years. She was the first woman to be elected president of the American Physical Society.

A positive image of a scientist woman

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Interests in science• Studying science subjects is regarded as difficult.

• However girls who plan to choose science are not interested in science per se, but because it is necessary to enter their desired health career (Miller et al., 2006)

• Studying physics and chemistry is regarded as more abstract and not relevant to the 'real world'.

• However, girls wish to study – science for daily life such as chemistry at home or

ecology in the city park– in chemistry "hot" issues such as pollution rather

than rates of chemical equations or chemical equilibrium.

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Stereotypes of jobs

• Studying science to get desired job– Biology for female students who want to

become health professionals– Computer science and physical sciences

for male students who want to become engineers

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Relationship to knowledge

• Issue introduced into French educational studies (Dr B. Charlot) as an indicator to explain learning development.

• Related to identity built through family, friends and personal experience.

• Relationship to knowing and to learning such or such subject

• Male experience female experience

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Miller et al., 2006

• Female high-school students – More 'people-oriented' than males are– Choice of a major, including science, in terms of

their desire to help people or animals

• This caring orientation may be found in early socialization (playing with dolls, playing mother, ….)

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Self-perception of relationship to science

• Girls perceive their academic strength to be in verbal areas, as early as the 4th-grade,

• whereas boys perceive theirs in mathematics and science.

• True even for 'gifted' students

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Gender-role socialization

• Home and family environment– Sexualized toys– Parental views about the importance of

learning science– Significantly more males than females

internationally agree that it was important to do well in science to please their parents (67% compared to 58%) (TIMSS)

• Cultural capital and habitus

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• Socio-economic background.

• Societal barriers to females wishing to enter and remain in scientific fields: difficulty of combining work and family life

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Achieving gender equity in science classrooms

• Shift from a competitive to a cooperative educational model

• Encourage active participation in labs with hands-on experiments

• Develop curriculum focused on "real world"

• Fight narrow stereotypes of science and scientists

• Select materials that promote gender equity through texts and illustrations

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Does gender matter in science education?

• Yes it does! and everywhere.

• But the current problem is more the general and universal issue of decline in the choice of science studies and careers

• The number of students in undergraduate or postgraduate science programs is decreasing but proportionally the number of female students and women scientists has been increasing for the last decade.

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