Search

Joan Acker's theory on gendered organizations offers important tools for understanding subtler forms of inequalities and gendered practices in the workplace. According to Acker, invisible mechanisms in organizations such as the symbolic and material/structural aspects of organizations reproduce gendered inequalities. My application of Acker's theory demonstrates how imagery itself assigns value to collaborative practices in gender stereotypical ways. In an institutional context that devalues international research collaboration among faculty, gendered images of exploiter, patronizing helper, partner, or friend ultimately serve to construct glass fences ‐ obstacles to international collaborative engagement ‐ particularly for women. The reflection and potential recreation of gendered inequalities among academics simultaneously reconstructs inequalities between the U.S. and abroad, as institutional reward structures attach gendered symbolic and material values that (re)shape (international) collaborations themselves. Together, these processes construct the gendered organization of global science and academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A particularly longstanding, prevalent, and well-documented stereotype is the belief that men possess higher-level cognitive abilities than women do. This brilliance = male stereotype has been shown to be endorsed even by children as young as 6-years-old and is believed to be a factor driving the underrepresentation of women in STEM fields. Motivated by the fact that cultural products serve as a source for acquiring individual values and behaviors, we study the presence of this stereotype in a large collection of movie transcripts covering half a century of Western-world film history (n = 11,550). Concretely, we use natural language processing techniques to quantify associations between gender pronouns and high-level cognitive ability-related words. Overall, our estimates suggest that, at an aggregate level, the brilliance = male stereotype is effectively present in films and that movies specifically targeted at children contain this stereotypical association. Moreover, this pattern seems to have been quite persistent for the last 50 years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Mehmet Akif Ersoy University Journal of Education Faculty is the property of Mehmet Akif Ersoy Universitesi Egitim Fakultesi Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields play important roles in creating knowledge for society and pathways to power, resources, and authority for scientists, yet women, and people of color, have historically been underrepresented in STEM fields. Various approaches have attempted to diversify the pipeline into these fields. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 45 undergraduate students from a large Midwestern university in the US, we find that students have benefitted from programs aimed at recruiting women, and people of color, into STEM. Feminist approaches to raise awareness about gender gaps in STEM have enabled students to recognize gender differences, but they have not gone far enough yet. Rather than understanding and problematizing gendered power dynamics in the classroom, lab, and workplace, students espouse what we call 'STEMinism': an individualistic lens that, in many ways, asks women in STEM to recognize the problem and fix it for themselves. Improving the representation of women, and people of color, in STEM requires a concentrated critique and interruption of the structural forces that perpetuate sex-segregation in STEM. We offer suggestions for increasing the effectiveness of programs designed to end gender inequality in STEM fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A gender gap currently exists in college STEM majors, with a lower percentage of females entering math intensive fields. One possible explanation is the advice students receive in high school. We conduct a survey of high school guidance counselors, soliciting their advice regarding hypothetical high school students' college and major choices. We find counselors are more likely to believe outstanding female students will be successful at our selective college than outstanding male students, but are still less likely to recommend math majors to any female students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women and ethnic minorities (e.g., Latinos) continue to be underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In an attempt to understand why these STEM minorities are underrepresented, we explored high school students' cost perceptions about pursuing STEM in college. Past research has grouped cost into three dimensions: effort, loss of valued alternatives (LoVA), and emotional. Focus group interviews with Latino high school students confirmed the three cost dimensions, but there were some cultural sources of cost unique to our sample. Consequently, we modified and refined existing cost items to create a STEM-specific and culturally contextualized cost scale. We utilized our scale to examine how high school students at the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and math identification differ in cost perceptions. Results showed that high, compared with low, math-identified students had lower effort and LoVA costs. Among high math-identified students, we also found that STEM ethnic minorities had lower emotional cost than STEM ethnic majorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the example of green fields of study in higher education, which emerged largely in response to the growing prominence of the environmental movement over recent decades, this article posits that new and emerging fields of study can be an important source of change in gender segregation across fields of study. We suggest that new and emerging fields of study, when framed outside of existing gender divisions, may transcend established gender divisions and be characterized by greater gender integration in both STEM and non-STEM disciplines. Patterns of gender segregation among over 9 million bachelor's degree recipients between 2009 and 2013 confirm that green programs are systematically characterized by greater gender equality relative to non-green fields, regardless of their STEM classification. Further, the more gender imbalanced the "parent" field, the greater the difference we find in the gender composition of green and non-green programs. These results imply that green programs are promoting greater gender equality across the higher education system, underscoring the effect of the organizational structure of higher education, such as the structure of fields of study available to students, on gender segregation in the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study is to explore work experiences and knowledge transfer among Korean academics in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). In particular, the study addresses the ways in which academics from different generations develop their work experiences and how these experiences influence their knowledge transfer. The research questions are as follows. (1) To what extent do academics’ work experiences and knowledge transfer differ between generations? (2) What factors influence academics’ knowledge transfer, and do these factors differ by generation? The study uses multiple data sources: (1) the Korean Researcher Information service provided by the National Research Foundation of Korea; (2) the Korean Citation Index, Web of Science and Scopus for publication data, (3) the Korea Intellectual Property Rights Information Service; (4) a higher education database provided by the Ministry of Education, Korea and (5) an international comparative survey entitled ‘The Changing Academic Profession’. The results show that the training for academics in STEM fields in Korea has evolved over the last three decades. Their work experiences have changed, ranging from work in industry to work for public research institutes and postdoctoral fellowships. These experiences differ by generation, which also affects academics’ knowledge transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrating Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory, McClelland’s acquired needs theory, and more fine-grained indicators of work-related tasks, we (a) investigated the possible co-existence of global and specific motivational factors based on a new instrument and (b) used them to predict the goals of becoming a professor or a manager. We collected data from more than 3000 doctoral students and doctorate holders from the STEM fields at five measurement points. Bifactor exploratory structural equation modeling confirmed a hierarchical taxonomy. Both career goals were predicted by global and specific motives. Strong needs for power, income and leadership predicted aspirations to a management career. Motivational factors predicting the professorship goal were strong needs for competence, autonomy, and creativity, and low interest in income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation: Zeitschrift für Angewandte Organisationspsychologie (GIO) is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Despite the striking reversal of the gender gap in educational attainment and the near–gender parity in math performance, women pursue science and engineering (S/E) degrees at much lower rates than their male peers do. Current efforts to increase the number of women in these fields focus on different life-course periods but lack a clear understanding of the importance of these periods and how orientations toward S/E fields develop over time. In this article, we examine the gendered pathways to a S/E bachelor’s degree from middle school to high school and college based on a representative sample from the 1973 to 1974 birth cohort. Using a counterfactual decomposition analysis, we determine the relative importance of these different life-course periods and thereby inform the direction of future research and policy. Our findings confirm previous research that highlights the importance of early encouragement for gender differences in S/E degrees, but our findings also attest to the high school years as a decisive period for the gender gap, while challenging the focus on college in research and policy. Indeed, if female high school seniors had the same orientation toward and preparation for S/E fields as their male peers, the gender gap in S/E degrees would be closed by as much as 82 percent.

Focused on academic departments in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields in the United States, we attempt to map department chairs' awareness of family friendly policies and investigate possible determinants of their knowledge levels. Based on a sample of STEM department chairs in American research universities, we find that chairs only have limited knowledge of family friendly policies and face different incentives and constraints in pursuing more. Chairs prove more committed to family friendly policies if departments embrace a diversity strategy. Those aspiring to move up in the administrative hierarchy are more likely to champion policies of unpaid family leave, spousal hiring assistance and workload reduction for family reasons, whereas female chairs advocate more of family leave and onsite childcare policies. Departments self-assessed with less desirable status prove more knowledgeable about spousal employment assistance policy. We call for contingent understanding of family friendly policies and conclude the study by discussing research implications and developing policy recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the diversity and complexity of education game mechanisms and topics, this article contributes to a theoretical understanding of how game mechanisms 'map' to educational topics through inquiry-based learning. Namely, the article examines the presence of evolution through natural selection (ENS) in digital games. ENS is a fundamentally important and widely misunderstood theory. This analysis of ENS portrayal in digital games provides insight into the use of games in teaching ENS. Systematic database search results were coded for the three principles of ENS: phenotypic variation, differential fitness, and fitness heritability. Though thousands of games use the term evolution, few presented elements of evolution, and even fewer contained all principles of ENS. Games developed to specifically teach evolution were difficult to find through Web searches. These overall deficiencies in ENS games reflect the inherent incompatibility between game control elements and the automatic process of ENS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This study uses cross-national evidence to estimate the effect of school peer performance on the size of the gender gap in the formation of STEM career aspirations. We argue that STEM aspirations are influenced not only by gender stereotyping in the national culture but also by the performance of peers in the local school environment. Our analyses are based on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). They investigate whether 15-year-old students from 55 different countries expect to have STEM jobs at the age of 30. We find considerable gender differences in the plans to pursue careers in STEM occupations in all countries. Using PISA test scores in math and science aggregated at the school level as a measure of school performance, we find that stronger performance environments have a negative impact on student career aspirations in STEM. Although girls are less likely than boys to aspire to STEM occupations, even when they have comparable abilities, boys respond more than girls to competitive school performance environments. As a consequence, the aspirations gender gap narrows for high-performing students in stronger performance environments. We show that those effects are larger in countries that do not sort students into different educational tracks.

To date, there has been a wealth of research on participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, but most research focuses on the implementation of programs and whether these programs work. Such research can be expanded and enhanced by considering geographic perspectives on participation in the STEM fields and by examining the factors that prevent participation in these fields. In this paper, we seek to examine geographic perspectives to broadening participation in the STEM fields in two ways. We first conduct a literature review on the geographical understanding of barriers and facilitators of higher education that encompasses underrepresented populations in STEM fields. Second, we present a case study that catalyzes geography and seeks to broaden participation in the STEM fields. Both the literature review and case study show the significance and the role played by place-based factors and approaches, spatial thinking and inquiry-based learning, and environmental education and civic engagement work in helping advance the science of broadening participation in STEM fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• To show the women's process over the years in the STEM fields in Latin American. • A current overview of gained ground by women in favor of science and gender equality. • Opportunity areas for women in the process intensification. • The survey results on woman experiences in the research work are analyzed. In the last years, different entities have developed programs to incentivize and involve women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. In Europe, Asia, and Africa, only 30% of all professionals working on engineering research are women. In Latin American and the Caribbean countries, the panorama is more encouraging, nearly 50%. In this sense, this paper aims to analyze and highlight the woman's role in chemical and process engineering, especially in the process intensification area in the Latin American context. Initially, the document presents some historical data about relevant women. Then, statistic information is discussed on female researchers in the world, as well as in Latin American countries. The current work areas are also analyzed where there is a particular emphasis on intensified distillation configurations, biofuels and sustainable processes. Finally, some researchers that participated in the special issue solved a survey about their academic experiences. As noticed from the recovered answers, it is possible to claim that successful scientific women stimulate and inspire other women to exemplify transcendence. All academic family trees start with male mentors, but women have gained a relevant place in STEM fields; therefore, the structure will change and be more equitable in the future. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the extent to which prospective engineers follow in their parents’ footsteps. Specifically, we investigate the connection between fathers’ and mothers’ employment in the engineering profession and the career plans of sons and daughters. We develop a number of reasons to expect an occupation-specific intergenerational association in this field, as well as hypotheses regarding gender-specific role-modeling. Data are drawn from the UCLA HERI Freshman Survey data spanning 1971 to 2011. The results point to clear and substantial effects on sons and daughters’ plans to pursue engineering, connections that cannot be explained by typical pathways such as social background, education and values. The evidence points to a pattern of increasing salience of mothers with respect to the career plans of their children, especially their daughters. The implications of these findings for the under-representation of women in engineering and for gender-specific family dynamics are discussed in the conclusion.

Background: Field of study may influence the timing of transitions to the labor market, marriage, and parenthood among college graduates. Research to date has yet to study how field of study is associated with the interweaving of these transitions in the USA. Objective: The current study examines gendered influences of college field of study on transitions to a series of adult roles, including full-time work, marriage, and parenthood. Methods: We use Cox proportional hazards models and multinomial logistic regression to examine gendered associations between field of study and the three transitions among college graduates of the NLSY97 (National Longitudinal Survey of Youth) cohort. Results: Men majoring in STEM achieve early transitions to full-time work, marriage, and parenthood; women majoring in STEM show no significant advantage in finding full-time work and delayed marriage and childbearing; women in business have earlier transitions to full-time work and marriage than women in other fields, demonstrating an advantage similar to that of men in STEM. Conclusions: The contrast between men and women in STEM shows that transition to adulthood remains gendered; the contrast between women in STEM and women in business illustrates that a prestigious career may not necessarily delay family formation. Contribution: The paper shows how stratification by field of study creates gendered demographic outcomes for college graduates. It also demonstrates that women's decisions regarding marriage and parenthood do not uniformly respond to the economic prospect of their work.

Despite the striking reversal of the gender gap in education, women pursue science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degrees at much lower rates than those of their male peers. This study extends existing explanations for these gender differences and examines the role of the high school context for plans to major in STEM fields. Building on recent gender theories, we argue that widely shared and hegemonic gender beliefs manifest differently across schools so that the gender-specific formation of study plans is shaped by the local environment of high schools. Using the National Education Longitudinal Study, we first show large variations between high schools in the ability to attract students to STEM fields conditional on a large set of pre–high school measures. Schools that are successful in attracting students to these fields reduce the gender gap by 25 percent or more. As a first step toward understanding what matters about schools, we then estimate the effect of two concrete high school characteristics on plans to major in STEM fields in college—a high school’s curriculum in STEM and gender segregation of extracurricular activities. These factors have a substantial effect on the gender gap in plans to major in STEM: a finding that is reaffirmed in a number of sensitivity analyses. Our focus on the high school context opens concrete avenues for policy intervention and is of central theoretical importance to understand the gender gap in orientations toward STEM fields. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present study identifies characteristics of individuals and work settings that influence Asian international faculty members' intentions to continue their employment in US research universities. Given the demand for researchers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields (STEM), the higher rate of turnover among untenured faculty, and the replacement costs associated with turnover in STEM, the sample is limited to assistant professors employed in these areas. Multinomial regression analyses are conducted to identify variables that 'pull' and 'push' uncertain faculty toward intentions stay and leave their current institutions. The results suggest that faculty who are more satisfied with time available for research and those who express stronger organizational commitment are more likely to say they will stay. Those dissatisfied with the fairness of work evaluations and believe tenure decisions are not merit-based, are more likely to say they will leave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early childhood is a critical period for introducing girls to traditionally masculine fields of science and technology before more extreme gender stereotypes surface in later years. This study looks at the TangibleK Robotics Program in order to determine whether kindergarten boys and girls were equally successful in a series of building and programming tasks. The TangibleK Program consisted of a six lesson robotics and programming curriculum that was implemented in three different kindergarten classrooms (N = 53 students). Although previous research has found that males outperform females in robotics and programming related fields, it was hypothesized that the young age of participants and their limited cultural indoctrination regarding gender stereotypes would allow boys and girls to have equal success in this program. Although boys had a higher mean score than girls on more than half of the tasks, very few of these differences were statistically significant. Boys scored significantly higher than girls only in two areas: properly attaching robotic materials, and programming using Ifs. Overall, both boys and girls were able to successfully complete the program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has focused scant attention on how young women engage with the gendered construction of engineering as they decide whether or not to enter the field. Drawing on data from a study of more than a hundred diverse girls who participated in a National Science Foundation intervention and research project titled Female Recruits Explore Engineering (FREE), the article shows that their involvement with engineering is strongly gendered. The study participants were aware that engineering is male-dominated and not particularly open to women. They, especially the white and economically privileged girls, were also skeptical regarding the gendered messages they were receiving via programs designed to attract them to engineering. However, once the participants began to engage with engineering--through the selection of possible fields of study and by executing engineering projects--they did so in stereotypically gendered ways. The article's findings indicate that the girls' perceptions and choices are influenced by the presentation of engineering on websites, at career fairs, and through other venues designed to attract young women to engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of group performance anxiety on the attrition of women and minorities from science, math, and engineering majors. While past research has relied primarily on the academic deficits and lower socioeconomic status of women and minorities to explain their absence from these fields, we focus on the impact of stereotype threat-the anxiety caused by the expectation of being judged based on a negative group stereotype. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, our findings indicate that minorities experience stereotype threat more strongly than whites, although women do not suffer from stereotype threat more than men. Our findings also reveal that stereotype threat has a significant positive effect on the likelihood of women, minorities, and surprisingly, white men leaving science, technology, engineering and math majors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the increase of women earning degrees in STEM fields, there continues to remain a dearth in the number of women pursuing terminal degrees in mathematics. Additionally, Black women are nearly invisible in the field. This qualitative study examined the undergraduate and graduate experiences of twelve Black women mathematicians. A Black feminist framework embedded with a grounded theory approach was implemented Variations were discovered for the women who attended an HBCU versus those who attended a non-HBCU for their undergraduate degree. Mentorship, a supportive program, and study groups were prime indicators that the women attributed to their success. Future implications suggest finding ways to minimize feelings of isolation from doctoral programs in mathematics and allowing further opportunities for mentorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of J. G. Borkowski, L. K. Chan, and N. Muthukrishna's model of academic success (2000), the present authors hypothesized that freshman retention in an engineering program would be related to not only basic aptitude but also affective factors. Participants were 129 college freshmen with engineering as their stated major. Aptitude was measured by SAT verbal and math scores, high school grade-point average (GPA), and an assessment of calculus readiness. Affective factors were assessed by the NEO-Five Factor Inventory (FFI; P. I. Costa & R. R. McCrae, 2007), and the Nowicki-Duke Locus of Control (LOC) scale (S. Nowicki & M. Duke, 1974). A binary logistic regression analysis found that calculus readiness and high school GPA were predictive of retention. Scores on the Neuroticism and Openness subscales from the NEO-FFI and LOC were correlated with retention status, but Openness was the only affective factor with a significant unique effect in the binary logistic regression. Results of the study lend modest support to Borkowski's model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hands-on engineering education is an upcoming trend among K-12 schools throughout the United States to stimulate interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This study used unconventional methods to stimulate interest in STEM fields among high school students in a rural county of Tennessee. First, the study began by assessing enrollment data from each of Tennessee's 95 counties to determine the factors that influenced the decision by high school applicants to choose engineering at Tennessee Technological University (TTU). The findings revealed that, while there were no significant differences between the aptitude scores of applicants from rural and urban counties, TTU had a higher representation of freshmen from urban areas. This indicated that motivational programs targeted at counties with low population, income level, and education level were needed to boost enrollment from rural counties. As a response, we introduced next a hands-on engineering class at Jackson County High School (JCHS) that was tied to the national-level program called 'Project Lead the Way.' With JCHS lying in a rural setting right along the Cumberland River, an engineering risk study was completed in front of the class to demonstrate the risk of failure of the Wolf Creek Dam (in Kentucky), which lies upstream. The idea was to leverage a real-world engineering infrastructure and a natural hazard phenomenon (overflooding) that had direct and visible implications on the lives of the county, as a way to promote the societal value of STEM disciplines to students at JCHS. These efforts were monitored through a series of pre- and posttests to determine the effectiveness of the hands-on teaching methods and engineering risk analysis of a real-world infrastructure. The testing efforts showed a significantly positive impact on student perception of STEM fields in pursuit of engineering innovation. Student assessment of perceptions of engineering proved that the use of real-world water risk analysis of a nearby infrastructure as a motivational tool in a rural high school setting is very effective to boost awareness of STEM fields and engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains the organization and execution of a summer engineering outreach camp designed to attract and motivate high school students as well as increase their awareness of various engineering fields. The camp curriculum included hands-on, competitive design-oriented engineering projects from several disciplines: the electrical, environmental, mechanical, civil, and chemical engineering fields. The camp also provided additional information on financial aid, the academic programs in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) offered at Texas A&M University-Kingsville (TAMUK), as well as various career options for prospective engineers. The implementation of the camp activities and the well-designed hands-on projects not only increased the students' satisfaction, but also improved their self-confidence and their interest toward engineering disciplines. The engineering outreach camp survey results clearly indicated the success of the camp and the effectiveness of the hands-on, competitive engineering design experiences to attract students to engineering professions. Thus, it demonstrated an effective, feasible, and sustainable engineering recruitment approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]