"Failing girls" : understanding connections among identity negotiation, personal relevance, and engagement in science learning from underachieving girls
Autor/in:
Windschitl, Mark; Thompson, Jessica J.
Quelle: Journal of women and minorities in science and engineering, Vol. 11 (2005) No. 1, S. 1-26
Inhalt: "Contemporary critiques of science education have noted that girls often fail to engage in science learning because the activities lack relevance for them, and they cannot 'see themselves' in the work of science. Despite the empirical support for these claims, theory around the important connections between relevance, emerging self-identity, and engagement for girls remains underdeveloped. This qualitative, exploratory investigation examines engagement in science learning among five underachieving high school girls. Data sources include in-depth interviews, classroom observations, and teacher surveys. The girls were asked to describe engagement within three learning contexts: science class, a favorite class, and an extracurricular activity. From the girls' voices emerge three themes reflecting the centrality of self: 'who I am,' 'who I am becoming,' and 'the importance of relationships.' It is important that these themes of self and of identity negotiation are integrated with the ways these girls find learning personally relevant. One pattern of extracurricular engagement and two patterns of science engagement (integrated and situational) are described. This study attempts to expand the dialogue around the relationships between identity, relevance, and engagement among underachieving girls and suggests ways in which curriculum can be grounded in students' lives and developing identities." (author's abstract)
CEWS Kategorie:Bildung und Erziehung, Berufsbiographie und Karriere
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Theater as a community-building strategy for women in engineering : theory and practice
Autor/in:
Chesler, Naomi C.; Chesler, Mark A.
Quelle: Journal of women and minorities in science and engineering, Vol. 11 (2005) No. 1, S. 83-96
Inhalt: "Previously, the authors have suggested that peer mentoring through a caring community would improve the quality of life for female faculty members in engineering and could have a positive effect on retention and career advancement. Here, the authors present the background psychosocial literature for choosing participatory theater as a strategy to develop a caring community and report on a pilot study in which participatory theater activities were used within a workshop format for untenured female faculty members in engineering. The authors identify the key differences between participatory theater and other strategies for community building that may enhance participants' sense of commonality and the strength and utility of their community as a mentoring and support mechanism and discuss the ways in which these efforts could have a broader, longer term impact." (author's abstract)
CEWS Kategorie:Naturwissenschaft und Technik, Mentoring und Training
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Widening paths to success, improving the environment, and moving toward lessons learned from the experiences of Powre and CBL awardees
Autor/in:
Rosser, Sue V.; Daniels, Jane Z.
Quelle: Journal of women and minorities in science and engineering, Vol. 10 (2004) No. 2, S. 131-148
Inhalt: "To better understand the barriers and discouragements encountered by female faculty members in science and engineering, this article compares the experience of National Science Foundation-funded Professional Opportunities for Women in Research and Education (POWRE) awardees and Clare Boothe Luce (CBL) Professorship recipients. Because most POWRE awardees work at research institutions, and many CBL professors teach at small liberal arts colleges, this study helps in understanding the experiences of female faculty members across a broad spectrum of academic settings. Their experiences suggest positive changes in institutional policies or practices to increase the satisfaction, retention, and success of female faculty members infields in which they are the least well represented. The retention of female faculty members becomes critical for attracting undergraduate students as they consider the wisdom of choosing careers in academia." (author's abstract)
Quelle: Journal of women and minorities in science and engineering, Vol. 10 (2004) No. 4, S. 297-316
Inhalt: "This article presents quantitative results of a study of 139 academic women in the chemical sciences who participated in a professional development program sponsored by the Committee on the Advancement of Women Chemists. The study investigated variables frequently examined in the vocational psychology of women: approaches to achievement, coping strategies, career advancement, the home-work interface, workplace climate, and mentoring. The article presents and discusses results in the context of unique issues faced by women in scientific careers." (author's abstract)
CEWS Kategorie:Naturwissenschaft und Technik, Wissenschaft als Beruf
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
The benefits of mentoring for engineering students
Autor/in:
Wallace, Jean E.; Haines, Valerie A.
Quelle: Journal of women and minorities in science and engineering, Vol. 10 (2004) No. 4, S. 377-391
Inhalt: "The authors examined the benefits of mentoring for female and male engineering students and whether the benefits of mentoring differ depending on the sex of the mentor. Kram's framework of career development, psychosocial, and role-modeling functions was used to examine the benefits of mentoring for 1,069 engineering students. It was found that students with mentors were more socially integrated into their academic programs than students without mentors and that male mentors were more effective in this function than female mentors. Few students reported psychosocial benefits from being mentored, although female proteges reported more if they had female mentors. An unexpected finding for the role-modeling benefits was that mentored students reported less commitment to engineering careers than students without mentors. The authors close with a discussion of the implications of these findings and suggestions for future research in this area." (author's abstract)
CEWS Kategorie:Mentoring und Training, Naturwissenschaft und Technik
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Image problems deplete the number of women in academic applicant pools
Autor/in:
Sears, Anna L.W.
Quelle: Journal of women and minorities in science and engineering, Vol. 9 (2003) No. 2, S. 169-181
Inhalt: "Despite near numeric parity in graduate schools, women and men in science and mathematics may not perceive the same opportunities for career success. Instead, female doctoral students' career ambitions may often be influenced by perceptions of irreconcilable conflicts between personal and academic goals. This article reports the results of a career goals survey of math and science doctoral students at the University of California, Davis. Fewer women than men began their doctoral programs seeking academic research careers. Of those who initially favored academic research, twice as many women as men downgraded these ambitions during graduate school. Women were more likely to feel geographically constrained by family ties and to express concern about balancing work and family, long work hours, and tenure clock inflexibility. These results partially explain why the percentage of women in academic applicant pools is often well below the number of Ph.D. recipients. The current barriers to gender equity thus cannot be completely ameliorated by increasing the number of women in the pipeline or by altered hiring practices, but changes must be undertaken to make academic research careers more flexible, family friendly, and attractive to women." (author's abstract)
Quelle: Journal of women and minorities in science and engineering, Vol. 8 (2002) No. 1, S. 41-52
Inhalt: "Achievement-related beliefs were examined among a group of 238 college students in engineering (38 female, 104 male) and nonengineering majors (57 female, 39 male) to understand why women enter engineering majors at a low rate and are more likely than men to leave such majors. The results indicated that (a) among the engineering majors, women were more likely than men to identify engineering aptitude as a fixed ability, a belief that was associated with a tendency to drop classes when faced with difficulty; (b) female engineering majors were more likely to perceive male and female engineering students as receiving different treatment than their male counterparts; and (c) female engineering majors tended to place more emphasis on extrinsic factors and less emphasis on intrinsic factors than female nonengineering majors, a pattern not seen among men. Implications for intervention programs are discussed." (author's abstract)
Schlagwörter:Studentin; Ingenieurwissenschaft; Ingenieurin; Planung; Karriere
CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Naturwissenschaft und Technik
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Who gets promoted? : gender differences in science and engineering academia
Autor/in:
Olson, Kristen
Quelle: Journal of women and minorities in science and engineering, Vol. 8 (2002) No. 3-4, S. 347-362
Inhalt: "Using a nationally representative sample of doctoral academic scientists and engineers, this study examines gender differences in the likelihood of having tenure and senior faculty ranks after controlling for academic age, field, doctoral origins, employing educational institution, productivity, postdoctoral positions, work activities, and family characteristics. Logistic regressions show that many of these controls are significant; that biology and employment at comprehensive universities have a gender-specific advantage for women; and that postdoctoral positions, teaching instead of doing administrative work, and having children have a gender-specific disadvantage. Although the statistical methods employed here do not reveal the exact nature of how gender inequities in science and engineering careers arise, the author suggests that they exist." (author's abstract)
CEWS Kategorie:Geschlechterverhältnis, Naturwissenschaft und Technik
Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Hispanic students majoring in science or engineering : what happened in their educational journeys?
Autor/in:
Wightman Brown, Susan
Quelle: Journal of women and minorities in science and engineering, Vol. 8 (2002) No. 2, S. 123-148
Inhalt: "National statistics clearly demonstrate an under representation of minorities and women in the fields of science and engineering. Using Seidman's in-depth interviewing method, 22 Hispanic students, 12 female and 10 male, who were majoring in science or engineering were interviewed. These students were observed in their college science or engineering classes, their high school and college transcripts were analyzed, and they participated in a focus group. What made a difference in the educational journeys of these 22 students so that they could succeed - majors that have historically discouraged female and minority students? Seven themes emerged: family support, an honors program, a challenging and interactive curriculum, college preparation in high school courses, caring and kind teachers, small class sizes, and small communities. Educators must take note of these themes, which made a lasting difference in the students' futures, enabling them to choose science or engineering as their fields of study." (author's abstract)
Quelle: Journal of women and minorities in science and engineering, Vol. 8 (2002) No. 2, S. 235-247
Inhalt: "A residential summer program, the New Experiences far Women in Science and Technology (Newton) Academy, was developed to encourage high school girls' interest in the physical sciences and engineering. The goal of the Newton Academy was to increase and/or maintain interest and participation in the physical sciences among high schoolgirls. This study, part of a larger evaluation of the academy, reports the results of a follow-up of the 1998 Newton Academy participants 1 year after participation. It focuses on the participants' interests in the physical sciences and related careers as measured by the Strong Interest Inventory before and 1 year after participation. The results a/participant interviews conducted to further illuminate the findings from the quantitative data are also presented." (author's abstract)