COVID-19 and the Gender Gap in University Student Performance
Autor/in:
Bratti, Massimiliano; Lippo, Enrico
Quelle: IZA Discussion Paper, (2022)
Inhalt: The gendered impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been observed in many domains, such as labor market outcomes and mental health. One sector that was particularly disrupted by the pandemic was education, owing to the need to close educational institutions and move all learning activities online. In this paper, we investigate the gender gap in university student performance, focusing on a large public university located in one of the European regions most affected by the first pandemic wave (Lombardy, in Northern Italy). Despite concerns that the pandemic might have had a heavier toll on the educational performance of female students, our empirical analysis shows that the gender gap in student progression (number of credits earned) was not affected by the pandemic and that in some college majors (social sciences and humanities) women even improved their GPA relative to men
Schlagwörter:Benotung; gender gap; Leistungsdifferenzen; Leistungsfähigkeit; public universities and colleges; student; Student*in; Universität
CEWS Kategorie:Hochschulen, Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung, Studium und Studierende, Geschlechterverhältnis
Inhalt: Grounded in intersectional feminist approaches, this study explores the equity impacts of student evaluations of teaching (SETs) on precariously employed women in the academy. Despite their overrepresentation in the academic teaching workforce, precariously employed women are a demographic group that remains underrepresented in research on SETs. Thirty-four qualitative interviews with precariously employed academic women at a university in Ontario, Canada, were conducted to explore their experiences of SETs. The participants critiqued SETs’ role in perpetuating feminized and racialized labour market precarity, and undermining their professional autonomy and professionalization. They also described how SETs subject them to discriminatory evaluations based on their gender, race and age, and the impacts thereof on their workload and mental health. This study’s findings reveal the importance of recognizing SETs’ impact on equity and the need to change teaching evaluation policy in higher education.
Warum nehmen Männer mit Migrationshintergrund überproportional häufig ein Studium auf, gelangen aber am Ende seltener in die weiterführenden Masterstudiengänge?
Autor/in:
Lörz, Markus
Quelle: Berliner Journal für Soziologie, 30 (2020) 2, S 287–312
Inhalt: Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, warum insbesondere studienberechtigte Männer mit Migrationshintergrund mit am häufigsten ein Studium aufnehmen, aber im Vergleich zu Frauen mit Migrationshintergrund seltener den Bildungsweg mit einem Masterstudium fortsetzen. Der Artikel diskutiert aus einer intersektionalen Lebensverlaufsperspektive potenzielle Erklärungsmechanismen für dieses sich im Studienverlauf wandelnde Ungleichheitsphänomen. Mit Blick auf mögliche Selektionsprozesse und Lebensverlaufseffekte werden verschiedene Erklärungsansätze skizziert und anhand des Studienberechtigtenpanels 2010 (3. Welle) empirisch überprüft. Auf Basis logistischer Regressionen kann der sich im Studienverlauf signifikant ändernde Interaktionseffekt zwischen Geschlecht und Migrationshintergrund aufgezeigt werden. Allerdings gelingt es nicht, die Ursachen dieses veränderten Ungleichheitsphänomens vollständig herauszuarbeiten, und es wird deutlich, dass die gängigen theoretischen Erklärungsperspektiven nicht ausreichen. Es finden sich keinerlei empirische Hinweise für die weit verbreitete Annahme, dass traditionelle Geschlechterrollenvorstellungen die Bildungsentscheidungen beeinflussen. Lediglich die höheren Bildungsaspirationen der Eltern mit Migrationshintergrund und der nachlassende Einfluss der Eltern auf die Bildungsentscheidungen der Kinder geben erste Anhaltspunkte für mögliche Ursachen. Die Erklärung der sich im Studienverlauf wandelnden intersektionalen Ungleichheiten ist demnach deutlich komplexer als theoretisch angenommen und stellt die empirische Bildungsforschung vor neue Herausforderungen.
Research literature on women of color in undergraduate engineering education : A systematic thematic synthesis
Autor/in:
Ong, Maria; Jaumot‐Pascual, Nuria; Ko, Lily T.
Quelle: J. Eng. Educ. (Journal of Engineering Education), 109 (2020) 3, S 581–615
Inhalt: Background: To address social disparities and generate an innovative workforce, engineering higher education should provide learning environments that benefit students from all backgrounds. However, because engineering programs are not enrolling or retaining women of color at demographic parity, a better understanding of these students’ experiences is needed to develop effective interventions.
Purpose: This study analyzes research on women of color in undergraduate engineering education to determine what influences their experiences, participation, and advancement. We identify challenges to and strategies for persistence and present recommendations for engineering institutions to create interventions that support women of color and mitigate institutional inequities.
Scope/Method: Using the snowballing method, we identified 65 empirical studies published between 1999 and 2015 that met the criteria for this review. These studies represented qualitative, mixed-methods, and quantitative methodologies from various fields. We conducted a systematic thematic synthesis, informed by frames of intersectionality, critical race theory, and community cultural wealth.
Conclusions: Women of color use navigational strategies to address the social pain of race and gender inequity in engineering education. Institutions should take responsibility for generating a sense of belonging for women of color and provide social and structural supports that increase self-efficacy, address social pain, and improve retention.
Schlagwörter:Ingenieurwissenschaft; Intersektionalität; literature review; people of color; Studium; undergraduate; women of color
CEWS Kategorie:Naturwissenschaft und Technik, Hochschulen, Studium und Studierende, Geschlechterverhältnis
Warum wählen Männer und Frauen unterschiedliche Studienfächer?
Autor/in:
Hägglund, Anna Erika; Lörz, Markus
Quelle: Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 49 (2020) 1, S 66–86
Inhalt: Trotz der seit mehreren Jahrzehnten bestehenden geschlechtsspezifischen Unterschiede in der Studienfachwahl, ist es der bisherigen Forschung nur zum Teil gelungen, die zugrundeliegenden Ursachen empirisch herauszuarbeiten und die geschlechtsspezifische Studienfachwahl vollständig zu erklären. Der vorliegende Beitrag geht daher aus verschiedenen interdisziplinären Blickwinkeln der Frage nach, warum Männer und Frauen unterschiedliche Studienfächer wählen und betrachtet hierbei fünf Fächergruppen.
Die Ergebnisse der multinominalen logistischen Regressions- und Dekompositionsanalysen zeigen, dass die geschlechtsspezifischen Unterschiede hauptsächlich aus vorgelagerten Bildungsentscheidungen und den damit zusammenhängenden Interessen- und Leistungsprofilen resultieren. Die kulturelle Zuschreibung von geschlechterkonformen Verhaltensweisen zeigt sich hierbei nicht in antizipierten Diskriminierungsprozessen, sondern in einer geschlechtsspezifischen Wahrnehmung der eigenen Fähigkeiten und der Entwicklung unterschiedlicher Berufsinteressen. Die Geschlechterunterschiede in den verschiedenen Fächergruppen sind jedoch teilweise auf unterschiedliche Ursachen zurückzuführen.
Quelle: Journal of the European Economic Association, 17 (2019) 2, S 535–566
Inhalt: This paper provides new evidence on gender bias in teaching evaluations. We exploit a quasi-experimental dataset of 19,952 student evaluations of university faculty in a context where students are randomly allocated to female or male instructors. Despite the fact that neither students’ grades nor self-study hours are affected by the instructor’s gender, we find that women receive systematically lower teaching evaluations than their male colleagues. This bias is driven by male students’ evaluations, is larger for mathematical courses, and particularly pronounced for junior women. The gender bias in teaching evaluations we document may have direct as well as indirect effects on the career progression of women by affecting junior women’s confidence and through the reallocation of instructor resources away from research and toward teaching. (JEL: J16, J71, I23, J45)
Schlagwörter:Diskriminierung; gender bias; Lehrevaluation; Student; Studium
CEWS Kategorie:Studium und Studierende, Geschlechterverhältnis
Social or Economic Goals? The Professional Goal Orientation of Students Enrolled in STEM and Non-STEM Majors in University
Autor/in:
Wolter, Ilka; Ehrtmann, Lisa; Seidel, Tina; Drechsel, Barbara
Quelle: Front. Psychol. (Frontiers in Psychology), 10 (2019)
Inhalt: Various studies try to disentangle the gender-specific competencies or decisions that lead to a career in a STEM field and try to find a way to encourage more women to pursue this kind of career. The present study examines differences in the meaning of work (i.e., their professional goal orientation) of students who are enrolled in STEM or non-STEM programs in tertiary education. Based on the background that gender stereotypes associate women and men with communal or agentic roles respectively, we expected that women in STEM subjects differ in their professional goal orientation from women in non-STEM programs. More precisely, women who are enrolled in a STEM major are expected to be less oriented to social and communal goal orientations than women in non-STEM university programs. In a sample of 5857 second year university students of the German National Educational Panel Study three profiles of professional goal orientation were confirmed in a latent profile analysis. As expected, women were more oriented towards social aspects of occupations, whereas men more likely belonged to a profile with high importance for economic aspects of occupations. Moreover, students enrolled in STEM programs more likely belonged to the profile of economic goal orientation. There was, however, no interaction of gender and STEM program: Women in STEM fields did not differ in their occupational goal orientation from women enrolled in non-STEM programs. Based on these findings and on a goal congruity perspective, future interventions aiming at overcoming the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields should consider the individual meaning of work and the goals that are associated with STEM occupations.
Quelle: Front. Sociol. (Frontiers in Sociology), 4 (2019) , 26 S
Inhalt: Research and popular debate on female underrepresentation in academia has focused on STEM fields. But recent work has offered a unifying explanation for gender representation across the STEM/nonSTEM divide. This proposed explanation, called the fieldspecific ability beliefs (FAB) hypothesis, postulates that, in combination with pervasive stereotypes that link men but not women with intellectual talent, academics perpetuate female underrepresentation by transmitting to students in earlier stages of education their beliefs about how much intellectual talent is required for success in each academic field. This theory was supported by a national survey which found that the disciplines with the fewest women had practitioners who were most likely to think that success in their field requires [talent]/[brilliance]. We test this topdown schema with a nationwide survey of U.S. undergraduates, assessing the extent to which undergraduate beliefs about talent in academia mirror those of academics. We find no evidence that academics transmit their beliefs to undergraduates. We also use a second survey – identical to the first but with each field’s gender ratio provided as added information – to explicitly test the relationship between undergraduate beliefs about gender and talent in academia. The results for this second survey suggest that the extent to which undergraduates rate brilliance as essential to success in an academic field is highly sensitive to this added information for nonSTEM fields, but not STEM fields. Overall, our study offers evidence that, contrary to FAB hypothesis, the STEM/nonSTEM divide principally shapes undergraduate beliefs about both gender and talent in academia.
Schlagwörter:Fächerwahl; Frauen in der Wissenschaft; gender bias; Gender stereotype; Geschlechterstereotyp; MINT; non-STEM divide; quantitative Analyse; STEM; Stereotyp; talent; Underrepresentation of women; Unterrepräsentanz; women in science
CEWS Kategorie:Studium und Studierende, Naturwissenschaft und Technik, Geschlechterverhältnis
Mitigating gender bias in student evaluations of teaching
Autor/in:
Peterson, David A. M.; Biederman, Lori A.; Andersen, David; Ditonto, Tessa M.; Roe, Kevin
Quelle: PLoS ONE, 14 (2019) 5
Inhalt: Student evaluations of teaching are widely believed to contain gender bias. In this study, we conduct a randomized experiment with the student evaluations of teaching in four classes with large enrollments, two taught by male instructors and two taught by female instructors. In each of the courses, students were randomly assigned to either receive the standard evaluation instrument or the same instrument with language intended to reduce gender bias. Students in the anti-bias language condition had significantly higher rankings of female instructors than students in the standard treatment. There were no differences between treatment groups for male instructors. These results indicate that a relatively simple intervention in language can potentially mitigate gender bias in student evaluation of teaching.
Schlagwörter:gender bias; Gleichstellungsmaßnahmen; Lehrevaluation; Sprache
CEWS Kategorie:Studium und Studierende, Geschlechterverhältnis
Intersektionalität im Hochschulbereich: In welchen Bildungsphasen bestehen soziale Ungleichheiten nach Migrationshintergrund, Geschlecht und sozialer Herkunft – und inwieweit zeigen sich Interaktionseffekte?
Autor/in:
Lörz, Markus
Quelle: Z Erziehungswiss (Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft), 22 (2019) 1, S 101–124
Inhalt: Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, inwieweit zwischen Abitur und Hochschulabschluss soziale Ungleichheiten bestehen und inwieweit sich Interaktionseffekte nach Geschlecht, sozialer Herkunft und Migrationshintergrund zeigen? Hierbei wird eine intersektionale Perspektive eingenommen und zwischen additiven und multiplikativen Effekten unterschieden. Die theoretischen Erwartungen werden auf Basis des Studienberechtigtenpanels 2010 (2015) getestet. Anhand logistischer Regression wird ersichtlich, dass sowohl additive als auch multiplikative Effekte sozialer Ungleichheit im Hochschulbereich bestehen. Diese sozialen Ungleichheiten unterscheiden sich jedoch erheblich in ihrem Ausmaß und bezüglich der Bildungsphase, in der diese zur Geltung kommen.