Scratch 2050

Many people wrongly think that gender means “women’s issues”. In reality, gender refers to socially determined roles and relations between males and females. Gender is different from sex. Sex refers to purely biological differences between men and women. Gender roles, on the other hand, are created and sustained by the society, which assigns different responsibilities to men and women, e.g., cooking for women and decision-making for men. 

Gender roles can therefore be changed and vary over time and from community to community. These gender roles are consciously or unconsciously carried into the classroom dynamics by both teachers and learners. In children’s textbooks, for example, women are often represented as cleaners, caregivers and nurses, and men are drivers, doctors, and leaders. These images reinforce gender roles. 

In a famous study, thousands of children were asked to draw a scientist (Chambers, 1983). Of the almost 5,000 drawings, just 28 depicted a female scientist, and all of those were drawn by girls. Not a single boy drew a woman. In follow-up studies, the number of learners drawing a woman as a scientist has increased, but is still far from 50% (Miller et al., 2015). Even girls, as they grow up, draw scientists as men. At age 6, girls draw 70 percent of scientists as women, but this proportion flips around ages 10 to 11 and by 16, they draw around 75 percent of scientists as men (Yong, 2018). Lower secondary school is a critical period in which they’re learning this gender-biased information about what is a scientist (Miller et al., 2015) .

Figure 183: Example of a female scientist, drawn by learners (Yong, 2018)

Activity

Can you give examples of how cultural norms and practices have an impact on girls’ and boys´ participation in STEM lessons in your school? Has there been any evolution over the years?

Areas where consistent gender differences have emerged are children’s beliefs about their abilities in STEM, beliefs and attitudes of other stakeholders (school leaders, teachers, parents, community leaders) in abilities of boys and girls, learning outcomes in STEM, children’s interest in STEM and their perceptions of the importance of STEM for their future. 

Researchers have found that girls often have less confidence in their abilities for STEM and ICT subjects than males do and that girls show less interest in STEM or ICT careers. Girls tend to underestimate their abilities in STEM subjects. This is a problem because research shows that children’s beliefs about their abilities are crucial to determining their interest and performance in different subjects and the career choices they make (Beilock et al., 2010). 

This gender difference contrasts with research that males and females generally show similar abilities in STEM, as measured by test scores. There is no such thing as a “female” or “male” brain.