Reflective Research Paper

Science, technology, engineering, and math are the four areas of study that make up STEM. These four areas all have one thing in common: they are all dominated by men. According to Lauren C. Williams, “men outnumber women 7 to 3 in tech jobs in New York City — and nationwide.”.7 Despite this, “women now earn more bachelor’s and master’s degrees than men”.6 However, “women are a minority”.2 Women are a minority in all STEM careers. The ratio of men to women in scientific fields has never been one to one. For some unknown reason very few women are choosing to become chemists, physicists, engineers, computer technicians, or mathematicians. There are many proposed theories for why women are extremely outnumbered in these scientific

Women have always been viewed as the weaker sex, and society will continue to view them that way unless they do something about it. In the essay “When Bright Girls Decide that Math is a Waste of time”, the author Susan Jacoby discusses the problems women steering clear of math and science subjects because of the traditional view of a woman. She focused on what causes high school girls to focus on arts courses instead of STEM courses and what are the effects of it on themselves. The underlying discrimination amongst boys and girls, stereotypical thinking of parents and teachers that girls are not good at math eventually decreases the self-confidence among girls to solve science and math problems.

When you send your children off in the morning to go to school, no matter what grade they are in whither it be elementary, junior high, or senior high, you expect that they will receive the best education that they can get. They should be asked challenging questions, encouraged and called upon to participate in class, they should also be given as much help as they need to secede by the teacher. However, this is most commonly not the case. Parents and the children themselves are unaware of what is going on because gender bias is not a noisy problem. Most people are unaware of the secret sexist lessons that occur every day in classrooms across the country. In this essay I will use two essay's from the reader:

Schlosser. She carried out the study while on a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University, and will study the effects of gender in higher education lecture halls next. This is one of few studies of its kind to use scientific data to address the question of gender effects in school. Boys with more female peers in their classes show higher enrollment rates in both advanced math and science classes, but overall benefits were found in all grades for both sexes. Prof. Schlosser found that primary-school classrooms with a female majority showed increased academic success for both boys and girls, along with a notable improvement in subjects like science and math. In the middle schools, girls were found to have better academic achievement in English, languages and math. And in high school, the classrooms which had the best academic achievements overall were consistently those that had a higher proportion of girls enrolled. A higher percentage of girls lowers the amount of classroom disruption and fosters a better relationship between pupils and their teacher, a study of the data suggests. Teachers are less tired in classrooms with more girls, and pupils overall seem to be more satisfied when a high female-to-male ratio persists. Prof. Schlosser was inspired to the study by a “renewed interest on the effects of classroom gender composition on students’ learning, since a new amendment to America’s Title IX

Children are expected to sit quietly at their desks for long periods of time, raise their hands to ask questions, and follow the rules. Girls are generally patient, organized, and hardworking and fare well in these classroom settings. Boys, on the other hand, can be restless, speak out of turn, and often become unfocused in these environments. Christina Hoff Sommers touches on this in her article when she says, “Teachers of classes as early as kindergarten factor good behavior into grades — and girls, as a rule, comport themselves far better than boys.” Teachers are known to reward good behavior, leaving boys with overall lower scores than

Most of this gender disparity starts early. As early as in grade school. Young girls are rarely motivated to take Math and Science. This can be problematic because studies show that a lack in intellectual belief can in turn inhibit intellectual growth. There is also that persistent unconscious bias that Science and Math are male fields while females tend to do well

The wrong perception of women in learning science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) holds them back from achieving their full academic potentials. Senior indicated that, "there is a stereotypical perception that women lack interest in technology and maths," (para 5). The attitude is harmful to the society and the education system. A quick observation would reveal that female gender performs at the same level – if not better – with males as long as they have the right tools and adequate teaching resources. Creating a narrative that women are disinterested in STEM

In his article, “Does Gender Matter?”, Ben A. Barres writes about the apparent absence of women in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields. He starts out the article by informing the reader about a few of the hypotheses that aim to explain this difference in presence, hypotheses that Barres aims to disprove. Barres explains, and at a few points depicts with charts and graphs, the significance of the gap between the amount of white men in the STEM majors and fields of studies and the amount of women and minorities in these same areas. He tell the readers the misconceptions such as the idea that women are inferior in these fields are untrue, and the fact is that woman and minorities are discouraged from entering into these areas

Sexual bias still remains in schools today, even though there has been a great many changes in the past 20 years. Girls enter school in the first grade with the same skills and ambitions as boys, if not more, but classroom sexist conditioning results in lower self-confidence and aspirations by the time they graduate from high school. Even though, two out of every three teachers may be women, they tend to favor sexual stereotypes, recalling more positively the assertive male students while liking least the assertive females. Teachers call on boys more often, give them more detailed criticism, and praise the intellectual content of boys’ work more then girls’ work, while more likely praising girls for their neatness. Teachers also allow boys to shout out answers and take risks, but they reprimand girls who do the same thing for rudeness. Additionally, few educators encourage girls to pursue careers in math or science.

Since the beginning of human history there has been inequality between the sexes. Even though scientifically there is no assigned roles in both genders, humans have created the expectations of a perfect male and female. Throughout American history we have been able to conquer the boundaries of science, and mess with the balance of nature. You’d think that a country that thrives in science, would acknowledge the fact that your gender doesn’t determine who you should be, but we do. Most of the social standards that we have created are unfavorable to women. Social standards have prohibited the growth of women in the career fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.

In this day and age, sexism is becoming a more controversial subject. With gender roles being portrayed in the wrong way based off of gender stereotypes, there is a lot to be changed. This shows that individuals are deeply affected by the gender stereotypes explained in textbooks given to students to study from. There are many effects including, students are taught to think a certain way. Females are specifically affected because they are directly treated unfairly. Lastly, males have been shown to be more favored in classroom settings. With this in mind, people are genuinely affected by the gender stereotypes depicted in scientific textbooks, whether it is realized or not.

According to the book the first lesson, “some inequities, including gender bias, simple fly below people radar. To make progress, people have to learn how to “see “subtle bias (291). This lesson points out that the influence of teachers show the biases. It highlights how powerful a little encouragement can play on students. Because early educational experience have an effect on them when choosing careers, eventually jobs they seek to work for. A great quote is given in the book when they say,” without training, without learning how to see bias, it is all missed (291). This quote tells us that teachers must first notice the bias in the class in order for students to learn equal opportunities and not to use gender biases. A prime example is the comparison when it comes to women in the world of math and science occupations. When we look earlier in the elementary school if teachers were to introduce women and younger girls to fields of computer science and engineering, then the reversing bias would increase the number of women in those fields. They are more likely to not choose those classes because they aren’t encourage to. In the book, teachers doesn’t always know when they are being bias. They may think, as they teach, they are simply practicing what year’s teachers, and educators taught. Teachers can reinforce gender by showing boy more attention and by simply drawing distinctions between

“While simply separating boys and girls doesn’t guarantee success, schools that use best practices for gender-specific teaching may be more successful at teaching to boys’ and girls’ strengths, says NASSPE Executive Director Leonard Sax, MD, PhD, a psychologist and family physician. “What we’re doing right now — pretending that gender doesn’t matter — is not working,” he says. “We are losing ground.” (Novotney, 2011).

From the research I have read while there is a disagreement on when and how much of a gender gap exists in math and science, there is definitely an equity issue that needs addressing. There seems to be an abundance of information about equity issues and as a future teacher I feel that it is important to examine these issues. If gender equity issues exist in today's’ classrooms why do they and what can be done to help correct it.

Parents also have a vital role in influencing the career path their children choose. Children look to their parents as role models and for approval, and parents attitudes and actions will influence their children. They also take into account what job their mother has as compared to their father. In many cases, children start to associate gender with particular jobs when they are very young due to their family life(Stitt, 1988). Stereotypes, like those, are brought forth to girls everyday, ranging from the traditional female jobs to males being more intelligent than females. One example is the fact that there aren’t as many women as men in jobs such as scientists and doctors. Girls often don’t question this idea because it is reinforced by so many people. These stereotypes sometimes get adopted by girls because of this constant reinforcement. Parents have the opportunity either to invalidate these stereotypes or confirm them by their actions and words. They must reassure their children that girls can participate in anything they want, including math and science activities or courses.