Women’s aversion to majors that (seemingly) require systemizing skills causes gendered field of study choice
Autor/in:
Combet, Benita
Quelle: European Sociological Review, (2023)
Inhalt: Technische Studiengänge scheinen für junge Frauen wenig attraktiv zu sein. Eine soziologische Studie der UZH hat im Detail untersucht, was Schülerinnen am meisten abschreckt. Dabei spielen überholte geschlechtsspezifische Stereotypen – etwa vermeintliche Unterschiede im analytischen Denken – eine grosse Rolle.
Warum entscheiden sich so wenige Schulabgängerinnen für ein technisches Studienfach – trotz guter Noten in Mathematik, trotz hohen Gehältern und Fachkräftemangel im MINT-Bereich? Diese Frage beschäftigt die Gesellschaftswissenschaften schon lange – zumal Untersuchungen zeigen, dass Mädchen mathematisch generell gleich begabt sind wie Knaben.
Möglicherweise spielen in der Gesellschaft verhaftete geschlechtsspezifische Stereotypen eine Rolle: Männer können logisch und abstrakt denken, Frauen sind eher kreativ. Männer sollen das Geld nach Hause bringen, Frauen kümmern sich um die Familie. Männer sind kompetitiv, Frauen scheuen das Risiko. Benita Combet vom Soziologischen Institut der Universität Zürich hat nun in einer Studie gezeigt, dass einige dieser Denkmuster tatsächlich ausschlaggebend für die Studienfachwahl sind.
Faktoren isoliert betrachten
Bisher tat sich die Wissenschaft schwer, die Frage nach den Beweggründen schlüssig zu beantworten. «Das Problem ist, dass viele dieser zum Teil auf falschen Vorstellungen beruhenden und daher nicht zwingend zutreffenden Charakteristiken in den Fächern simultan präsent sind», sagt Studienautorin Combet. So ist das Studium in den meisten MINT-Fächern mathematiklastig, es braucht eine Affinität zur Technik, der spätere Verdienst ist hoch, aber Teilzeitarbeit ist (noch) eher selten möglich. Welcher dieser Faktoren gibt denn nun den Ausschlag, sich für oder gegen ein Fach zu entscheiden?
Combet wählte für ihre Untersuchung deshalb einen neuen Ansatz: Statt die Versuchspersonen über ihr Interesse an echten Studienfächern wie Mathematik oder Psychologie zu befragen, präsentierte sie ihnen fiktive Studienfächer, die sich gezielt in spezifischen Punkten unterschieden: beispielsweise in Bezug auf die Möglichkeit zur Teilzeitarbeit oder die Anforderungen an analytisches Denken und emotionale Intelligenz. Dies ermöglichte ihr, die verschiedenen Faktoren bei ihrer Analyse voneinander zu entflechten. An der Befragung nahmen etwa 1'500 Schweizer Gymnasiastinnen und Gymnasiasten teil.
«Überaschenderweise liessen sich die männlichen Schüler ausschliesslich von ihren Präferenzen für Mathematik und materialistische Werte wie Lohn und Prestige beeinflussen», so Combet. Die anderen Faktoren scheinen für sie nicht relevant zu sein. Ganz anders das Bild bei den jungen Frauen: Diese zeigten eine Aversion gegen Fächer, die analytisches statt kreatives Denken voraussetzten und im Berufsalltag wenig soziale und emotionale Fähigkeiten erforderten. Sie bevorzugten zudem weniger kompetitive Berufsfelder mit Möglichkeit zur Teilzeitarbeit. Entgegen der Erwartungen fühlten sie sich aber genau wie die Männer zu Berufen mit hohem Gehalt und Ansehen hingezogen.
«Vor allem im Hinblick auf Faktoren wie logischer Denkstil und technische Fähigkeiten existieren noch starke geschlechtsspezifische Stereotypen, welche die Entscheidung der Gymnasiastinnen offensichtlich massgeblich beeinflussen», so Combet. «Wir sollten deshalb weiterhin daran arbeiten, diese stärker zu hinterfragen.» Zum Beispiel in Bezug auf das analytische Denken – hier ist wissenschaftlich keineswegs nachgewiesen, dass es Unterschiede zwischen Männern und Frauen gibt. Ausserdem ist diese Fähigkeit Grundvoraussetzung für fast jedes Studium.
Zudem findet es Combet wichtig, die Schülerinnen noch besser über die Studienfächer zu informieren. «Viele gängige Vorstellungen darüber sind nämlich nicht akkurat.» Zum Beispiel, dass es im Ingenieursstudium nur um Affinität zur Technik geht. «Auch in diesem Bereich sind zwischenmenschliche und kreative Fähigkeiten zentral, etwa bei der gemeinsamen Entwicklung von Prototypen.»
(idw-Pressemitteilung)
Quelle: Front. Sociol. (Frontiers in Sociology), 8 (2023) , 1154138 S
Inhalt: Gender segregation in higher education is considered one of the main drivers of persistent economic gender inequality. Yet, though there has been considerable research identifying and describing the underlying mechanisms that cause gendered educational choices in higher education, little is known about how gender segregation in higher education could be changed. Accordingly, this article aims to determine the potential of educational interventions during high school to foster gender desegregation in higher education. We focused on two different processes that contribute to gender segregation in majors among higher education graduates: first, the selection into specific majors and, second, the selection out of specific majors. We investigated whether an intensive counselling programme leads to more gender-atypical choices among high-school graduates and examined whether intensive counselling supports several indicators of students' persistence in gender-atypical majors. Based on data from an experimental study of a counselling programme for German high-school students (N = 625), we estimated the programme's effect with linear probability models and intention-to-treat analysis. Our results show that high-school graduates are more likely to choose a gender-atypical major if they have received intensive counselling. This applies more to men than to women. In addition, the programme improved some persistence indicators for students in gender-atypical majors. Although we found a significant programme effect only for perceived person-major fit and student satisfaction, the coefficients of all aspects of students' persistence show a trend indicating that the programme was beneficial for students in gender-atypical majors. As experimental studies can also be affected by various types of bias, we performed several robustness checks. All analyses indicated stable results. In conclusion, we suggest that intensive counselling programmes have the potential to reduce gender segregation in higher education. More students were motivated to choose a gender-atypical major, and different aspects of student persistence were supported by the programme for students in gender-atypical majors.
Schlagwörter:Beratung; college major choice; gender segregation; horizontal segregation; horizontale Segregation; Studienberatung; Studienfachwahl; Studium
CEWS Kategorie:Naturwissenschaft und Technik, Studium und Studierende
Quelle: Data & Knowledge Engineering, 143 (2023) , 102108 S
Inhalt: Gender inclusion is fundamental to a prosperous society, but inequality and exclusion persist in various sectors of it. One of them is the ICT field, which is still struggling to represent the diversity of those it serves. The lack of diversity and power imbalance in software development affects the produced systems, that, instead of advancing gender inclusion, create new barriers in achieving it. Although considered neutral, software does not equally serve everyone who depends on it, favoring characteristics that are statistically more observed in those that are represented during development. As software development teams are predominantly male, it is not surprising that existing systems favor characteristics that are statistically more observed in men over characteristics observed in other genders. As technologies rapidly evolve and revolutionize the way we live, addressing this problem becomes urgent to ensure that these systems benefit everyone, regardless of their gender. As a first step towards this goal, we performed a systematic mapping study on gender issues in software engineering whose results indicated that gender impacts development and systems, but there are limited approaches for addressing it in Requirements Engineering. This study served as the foundation for proposing a conceptual model for gender-inclusive requirements. Its main objective is to facilitate discussion and analysis of gender and related concepts in the elicitation process to include them in the specification of requirements. In this paper, we extend this work by illustrating the concepts with an example, by presenting a process for using the knowledge of the model and a prototype tool that implements it, and by discussing an evaluation with 31 participants of the conceptual model’s usefulness, difficulty of understanding, strengths and weaknesses, use and recommendation, and finally, its components. The results were positive as both novices and experts in conceptual modeling considered the model useful, provided comprehensive feedback on its strengths but also suggestions for improvement, and most answered positively to the questions about whether they would use and recommend it
Unlocking the Power of Mentoring : A Comprehensive Guide to Evaluating the Impact of STEM Mentorship Programs for Women
Autor/in:
Wolf, Elke; Brenning, Stefanie
Quelle: Soc. Sci. (Social Sciences), 12 (2023) 9
Inhalt: Although mentoring programs for female STEM students are often carried out with a great deal of passion on the part of program managers and mentors, robust results on their effects are often missing. However, regular evaluations are indispensable for an efficient allocation of resources towards gender balances in STEM. To accomplish this requirement, empirically valid and easy-to-use evaluation concepts are needed. We therefore develop an evaluation concept which corresponds to a Logic Chart, capturing three levels of expected effects (output—outcome—impact). On each level of impact, we derive a set of success indicators that can be measured by qualitative methods. A major advantage of our evaluation design is that the effect of a mentoring program can be observed directly after the end of the program. Furthermore, the results provide information about different channels of impact (e.g., reduced stereotypes or increased self-efficacy) and hence offer concrete indications for the further development of the program.
“Flying under the radar”: Postfeminism and teaching in academic science
Autor/in:
Doerr, Katherine
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: Neoliberal academia is marked by vertical and horizontal gender segregation, and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is a particularly concerning case. Women with PhDs are underrepresented, and when they do participate, they are more likely than men to be in teaching-intensive roles. Beyond equality concerns, this is problematic because when women are interpreters rather than producers of disciplinary knowledge, the STEM enterprise remains gender-biased. Using data from a 2-year ethnography with physical science faculty in teaching-intensive roles, this paper argues that gender inequity is reproduced through postfeminist discourses of work-life balance. Participants who are mothers say they are flying under the radar at work. They self-surveille as they engage in both paid labor as university educators and unpaid carework at home. Importantly, when participants challenge hegemonic gender norms, they attract the radar's attention and are sanctioned. This study contributes to a growing understanding of how and why women are marginalized in STEM careers. Women with science PhDs fulfill their university's teaching mission with minimal support for the implied compensation of work-life balance, leaving the institutional structures which privilege men's participation in STEM research intact.
In/visible: The intersectional experiences of women of color in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine in Australia
Autor/in:
Nash, Meredith; Moore, Robyn
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: It is now well-established that science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) institutions globally should invest in building diverse and inclusive workforces. However, women of color remain underrepresented in STEMM in Australia and their organizational experiences are under-researched. To address this gap, we used a qualitative approach to explore the complex intersections of race/ethnicity and gender that may contribute to women's underrepresentation in Australian STEMM. Primary data encompassed interviews with 30 self-identified women of color working in academia, industry, and government STEMM organizations. We drew on intersectionality theory to explore participants' experiences of their working environments and grounded theory in our analysis. This article focuses on an understudied area related to the maintenance of white male power in STEMM and everyday experiences of “in/visibility”—the paradoxical space of invisibility and hypervisibility that women of color occupy within STEMM fields. For example, various features of women of color's identities, such as physical appearance, cultural background, accent, and name, led to participants feeling “different” and hypervisible in STEMM workplaces in Australia, in which the stereotype of a white male scientist predominates. Women also felt hypervisible as race/gender tokens when they were expected to do the diversity work of the institution. In contrast, participants felt invisible when they were professionally and socially excluded from networking events, such as after-work drinks. Women of color's experiences of having to work much harder than white colleagues to gain recognition of their organizational value also contributed to feelings of invisibility. The study findings provide deep insight into Australian STEMM cultures by foregrounding how in/visibility shows up in the experiences of women of color. This study builds on our understanding of women's STEMM careers as inextricably linked to intersectional features of social identity and white masculine power dynamics in organizations and society more broadly. We conclude by advocating for a more nuanced understanding of “women in STEMM” in Australia (e.g., via more sophisticated data collection and analysis) to ensure that national policies and initiatives benefit all women.
Gender Differences in STEM Persistence after Graduation
Autor/in:
Delaney, Judith; Devereux, Paul J.
Quelle: economica, 89 (2022) 356, S 862–883
Inhalt: Much attention is focused on finding ways to encourage females to study STEM in school and college but what actually happens once women complete a STEM degree? We use the UK Quarterly Labour Force Survey to trace out gender differences in STEM persistence over the career. We find a continuous process whereby women are more likely to exit STEM than men. Among holders of STEM undergraduate degrees, women are more likely to obtain a non- STEM master's degree. Then, after entering the labour market, there is a gradual outflow of females during the first 15 years post-graduation so that females are about 20 percentage points less likely to work in STEM compared to their male counterparts. Conditional on leaving STEM, we find that females are more likely to enter the education and health sectors while males are more likely to enter the more lucrative business sector and that this can partly explain the gender pay gap for STEM graduates. Overall, our results suggest that policies that aim to increase the proportion of females studying STEM in school and college may have less effect than expected due to the lower attachment of females to STEM after graduation. Such policies may need to be augmented with efforts to tackle the greater propensity of females to exit STEM throughout the career.
Quelle: Science (New York, N.Y.), 372 (2021) 6548, S 1345–1348
Inhalt: Women engage in less commercial patenting and invention than do men, which may affect what is invented. Using text analysis of all U.S. biomedical patents filed from 1976 through 2010, we found that patents with all-female inventor teams are 35% more likely than all-male teams to focus on women's health. This effect holds over decades and across research areas. We also found that female researchers are more likely to discover female-focused ideas. These findings suggest that the inventor gender gap is partially responsible for thousands of missing female-focused inventions since 1976. More generally, our findings suggest that who benefits from innovation depends on who gets to invent.
Die Professoren Rembrand Koning von der Harvard Business School, Sampsa Samila von der IESE Business School und John-Paul Ferguson von der McGill University analysierten mehr als 430.000 biomedizinische US-Patente, angemeldet zwischen 1976 und 2010. Patente mit ausschließlich weiblichen Erfinderteams drehen sich mit 35% höherer Wahrscheinlichkeit um die Gesundheit von Frauen als die Ergebnisse rein männlicher Teams. Im Jahr 1976 stammten nur 6 Prozent der biomedizinischen Patente von Teams, die von Frauen geleitet wurden, 2010 waren es bereits 16%. Dieser Anstieg um 10 Prozentpunkte führte zu deutlich mehr Innovationen im Bereich der Gesundheit von Frauen.
Frauen stellen derzeit etwa 35% der Wissenschaftler in den MINT-Fächern. Laut der Studie gibt es Gründe dafür, dass sie bei Patentanmeldungen nicht zahlreicher zu finden sind. Noch immer gebe es geschlechtsspezifische Diskriminierung auf dem Arbeitsmarkt und in den Entscheidungsprozessen, welche F&E-Vorhaben Manager als aussichtsreich erachten.
„Ungleichheit auf dem Arbeitsmarkt kann zu Ungleichheit im Produktbereich führen“, erklärt IESE-Prof. Samila. „Diskriminierung auf dem Arbeitsmarkt ist nicht nur ein Problem für den Einzelnen, sondern für die gesamte Gesellschaft, da die Beiträge derjenigen fehlen, die diskriminiert wurden“. Der Abbau von Barrieren für benachteiligte Gruppen fördere daher Innovation und Wirtschaftswachstum. „Es mag noch viele ungenutzte Marktchancen für Erfindungen für Frauen geben, Möglichkeiten, die wiederum die Gesundheit von Frauen verbessern könnten“.
Patente von Frauen drehten sich mit höherer Wahrscheinlichkeit um die Gesundheit von Frauen als diejenigen, die von Männern ersonnen wurden. Fortschritte durch weibliche Erfinder gibt es zuhauf. So hat die Unternehmerin Surbhi Sarna aus ihrer eigenen Angst vor Eierstockkrebs heraus ein besseres Werkzeug zur Krebserkennung erfunden. Dr. Patricia Bath fand eine präzisere Behandlung für den Grauen Star, von dem Frauen häufiger betroffen sind als Männer. Die neue Studie untermauert diese Ergebnisse mit einer systematischen Datenanalyse.
Während schon mehrheitlich weibliche Erfinderteams sich eher dem weiblichen Geschlecht widmen, ist das Muster bei reinen Frauenteams am stärksten ausgeprägt. Der Zusammenhang zwischen weiblichen Erfindern und Erfindungen ist sowohl das Ergebnis auf Frauen fokussierter Forschungsbereiche wie der Gynäkologie als auch der Kunst weiblicher Erfinder in allen Wissenschaftsbereichen, Gelegenheiten für Erfindungen, die Frauen helfen, zu erkennen. (deutsches Abstract: idw)
Gender equality as a resource and a dilemma: interpretative repertoires in engineering education in Sweden
Autor/in:
Silfver, Eva; Gonsalves, Allison J.; Danielsson, Anna T.; Berge, Maria
Quelle: Gender and Education, (2021) , S 1–17
Inhalt: This article explores how female university students’ abilities to present themselves as ‘authentic’ engineers are imbricated with discursive constructions of gender and gender equality. The empirical data comes from interviews and video diaries collected with three female engineering students. The analysis demonstrates the power of the Swedish gender equality discourse to inform the students’ talk as they negotiate their gendered identities to become intelligible as engineering students and engineers. We suggest that gender equality is used as a resource in the repertoires, but we also demonstrate that this discourse becomes a dilemma in that it limits possibilities for gender performances to go beyond old patterns. Despite this, the article still shows three unique ways of negotiating gender and other social categories in different situations connected to university learning and participation in internships.
Schlagwörter:discourse; Diskurs; engineering; Gleichstellungspolitik; Identität; Identitätsbildung; Ingenieurwissenschaft; Schweden; Studentin; Sweden
CEWS Kategorie:Naturwissenschaft und Technik, Studium und Studierende
Quelle: Journal of Further and Higher Education, (2021) , S 1–14
Inhalt: The transition of early career researchers into academic posts is understood to be a crucial career step and marks a point at which representation of women declines significantly. The research adopts a participatory qualitative research methodology through career narrative interviews and group discussions with women engineers recently appointed into academic posts. It was found that academic careers are ‘hoped for’, but not described as a straightforward option in terms of either securing tenure or future career development. The collective career paths outlined were rarely linear and featured key moments of crisis and self-doubt, culminating in ‘tentative’ career identity formation in the face of gendered career structures. There is evidence of a pre-emptive and continuing uncertainty about the feasibility of an academic career that begins years before embarking on a PhD. The distinctive contribution of the study is the consideration of gendered early processes of forming an academic identity and ongoing collective experiences of becoming an academic.
Schlagwörter:akademische Karriere; early career researchers; Gender; Ingenieurwissenschaft; soziale Konstruktion; transition; Übergangsphase; wissenschaftlicher Nachwuchs
CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Naturwissenschaft und Technik, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis