Beyond Access: Considering gender deficits in science education

ABSTRACT Despite striking increases in female enrolments in many undergraduate science programmes, women continue to be dramatically underrepresented in graduate training and careers in science. Although there is substantial evidence of differences in male and female students' experiences in university science courses, we know little about how young women interpret and respond to these differences. This article explores the accounts that female science students construct of their aspirations, educational experiences, achievements, and opportunities as they move through their undergraduate education at a large, urban university in Canada. Based on in-depth, longitudinal interviews ( n = 91), the focus is on the processes through which they make sense of their educational and career options and choices. The findings point to the importance of understanding how meanings and subjectivities are produced, understood, and acted upon. What is evident from this study is that women in science confront a complex web of competing and contradictory realities and discourses as they negotiate their career identities. Thus, to stem the progressive and cumulative loss of female students as they move up through the levels of higher education, universities must address the problems they confront in their pursuit of science training before, during, and after their undergraduate education.     

Sreyashi Jhumki Basu: Building a more equitable world through science education

Dr. Sreyashi Jhumki Basu was a scholar committed to equity and social justice in science education who passed away in December 2008. In this essay, I describe Jhumki’s research and the call to action her life’s work has laid out for the science education community. In particular, I draw attention to the role of critical science agency in learning and the democratic science pedagogy model that Jhumki developed to support students in crafting such agency.

Where the boys aren't: non-cognitive skills, returns to school and the gender gap in higher education

Nearly 60 percent of college students today are women. Using longitudinal data on a nationally representative cohort of eighth grade students in 1988, I examine two potential explanations for the differential attendance rates of men and women—returns to schooling and non-cognitive skills. The attendance gap is roughly five percentage points for all high school graduates. Conditional on attendance, however, there are few differences in type of college, enrollment status or selectivity of institution. The majority of the attendance gap can be explained by differences in the characteristics of men and women, despite some gender differences in the determinants of college attendance. I find that higher non-cognitive skills and college premiums among women account for nearly 90 percent of the gender gap in higher education. Interestingly, non-cognitive factors continue to influence college enrollment after controlling for high school achievement.     

Addressing controversies in science education: a pragmatic approach to evolution education

Science education controversies typically prove more intractable than those in scientific research because they involve a wider range of considerations (e.g., epistemic, social, ethical, political, and religious). How can educators acknowledge central issues in a controversy (such as evolution)? How can such problems be addressed in a way that is ethically sensitive and intellectually responsible? Drawing in part on pragmatic philosopher John Dewey, our solution is politically proactive, philosophically pragmatic, and grounded in research. Central to our proposal is (1) steps toward creating a philosophical “total attitude” that is democratic, imaginative, and hypothetical; (2) a deeper understanding of how scientific theories can be pragmatically true; and (3) an assessment of differing pedagogical approaches for teaching evolution in the classroom.     

Women and gender studies and multicultural education: Building the agenda for 2000 and beyond

Abstract

Multicultural education has always been contested terrain, yet within the last five years a significant consensus about its scope and function has evolved. The discourse about multicultural education has not adequately attended to the debates surrounding the terms “gender” and “sex” or the multiple feminist theories that focus on the more critical aspects of a social change agenda. This article focuses on some of the tensions between women and gender studies and multicultural education such as: understanding gender as a category of analysis, theoretical constructions of feminism, and building an educational agenda for social justice in an effort to further the agenda for 2000 and beyond.     

Potentialities beyond deficit perspectives: globalization, culture and urban science education in the Bronx

The major focus of this ethnographic study is devoted to exploring the confluence of global and local referents of science education in the context of an urban chemistry laboratory classroom taught by a first-generation Filipino-American male teacher. This study investigates encounters between the teacher and four second-generation immigrant female students of color, as well as encounters among the four students. The pervasive spread of neoliberal ideology of accountability and sanctions both globally and locally, particularly in public high schools in the Bronx, New York City fuel situations for teaching and learning science that are encoded with the referents of top-down control. In the face of theses challenges, classroom participants must become aware of productive ways to build solidarity and interstitial culture across salient social boundaries, such as age, gender, ethnicity and role, to create and sustain successful teaching and learning of chemistry. Empirical evidence for solidarity was guided by physical and verbal displays of synchrony, mutual focus, entrainment, and emotional energy, body gestures, and prosody markers. This study shows that classroom participants used a combination of prosody markers to appropriate resources to decrease breaches in face-to-face encounters and, at the same time, create and sustain participation and solidarity to successfully complete an acid–base experiment.     

Efficacy of a gender and ethnic equity in science education curriculum for preservice teachers

The purpose of the Gender and Ethnic Equity in Science Education (GEESE) program, conducted during the student-teaching semester, was to provide preservice science teachers with the opportunity to use clinical observations and reflection as vehicles for discovery of the disparate school experiences of the diverse students in their science classrooms. The preservice teachers examined curricular materials in use during their practicum, student and teacher behaviors, the quantity and quality of student–teacher interactions, and grouping and evaluative strategies before attempting self-analysis at the conclusion of the program. Interviews were used as the source of qualitative evidence of change in the preservice teachers' attitudes and teaching behaviors. While students approved of the program initially, they eventually dismissed issues of gender and ethnic equity as critical once they began struggling with the inadequate academic preparation of their students and scant material resources. Ultimately, the preservice teachers identified the GEESE program as useful in that it provided them with specific critical techniques, but inappropriately placed at the conclusion of their professional development sequence. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 34: 1019–1038, 1997.     

Problem-posing research in mathematics education: looking back, looking around, and looking ahead

In this paper, I comment on the set of papers in this special issue on mathematical problem posing. I offer some observations about the papers in relation to several key issues, and I suggest some productive directions for continued research inquiry on mathematical problem posing.     

Towards a truer multicultural science education: how whiteness impacts science education

Cultural Studies of Science Education - The hope for multicultural, culturally competent, and diverse perspectives in science education falls short if theoretical considerations of whiteness are...     

Looking forward by looking back: equity in science education as socially just and morally healing action

Cultural Studies of Science Education - In this conceptual paper, we argue that social justice, morality, and healing must be at the core of an equity agenda for science education. When we view...     

科教兴国与面向世界--学习研究型大学论坛札记

邓小平同志指出:教育要面向现代化、面向世界、面向未来,高等教育也是如此,研究型大学更是如此.我们理解,高等教育和研究型大学必须现代化,促进国家经济建设和社会发展现代化,使国家富强起来.在此前提下,教育面向世界,使教育、科技、经济、社会在世界上有地位,能与各国合作与竞争,还要面向未来,能持续发展.     

Mathematical self-concept: How college reinforces the gender gap

Research in the past decade suggests that persistent gender gaps in math achievement may be rooted in gender differences in math self-concept. Yet, limited research exists on how students' math self-concept develops, and whether this differs between men and women. Using a sample of 8,997 women and 6,053 men, this study examines the factors associated with the development of women's and men's mathematical self-concept during college. Findings reveal a number of student background characteristics and college environments and experiences that contribute to an overall decline in math self-concept during college, and show how college reinforces the gender gap in math confidence. Additionally, in an attempt to answer the perennial question of whether it is “better to be a big frog in a small pond or a small frog in a big pond,” the study pays special attention to the relationship between institutional selectivity and math self-concept. Although institutional selectivity is correlated with declines in math self-concept, results show that specific aspects of selective environments, rather than selectivity itself, are more important predictors of math self-concept. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1992 Meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education in Minneapolis.     

Opportunities and barriers: Gendered reality in Chinese higher education

In the field of Chinese higher education, gender is still a significant issue, as is a general ignorance of gender discrimination against women. Issues related to gender can be observed throughout the process of education: at the time of entering an institution, during the educational process and as an outcome of education. The following seven aspects of sexual discrimination occur in Chinese higher education system: (1) Fewer opportunities for women in higher education than for men; (2) within disciplines and specializations there exists the phenomena of gender segregation and diffluence; (3) considerable gender difference exists in the distribution of school resources; (4) teaching materials and teaching content are gender discriminatory; (5) within higher education institutions, student organizations have a degree of gender imbalance; (6) campus culture has a hidden agenda of gender discrimination; and (7) employment prospects for women tend to be unequal and discriminatory.