Girls & STEM: A collective concern

This post was written by Orna Lavie, Fast Forward Project Manager at MindCET

Seeing the number of people who attended the workshop (at Shaping the Future lll), was not only validating, but confirmed my belief that girls and STEM isn’t a niche issue but a collective concern. The workshop attendees represented a cross-section of the education ecosystem, including the Ministry of Education, several NGOs, academia and industry, organizations that represent the different stakeholders in the issue of girls and STEM. Why are so many interested in and worried about the situation? I believe there are several reasons. First, governments invest a lot of money in this sphere, since, not utilizing women’s economic potential could have a negative impact on a nation’s economic development. Second, many of the NGOs are concerned about issues of equality. It seems that women do not have the same opportunities to choose occupations as men, since so few of them choose STEM-related jobs. Moreover, the salary difference between genders in STEM is lower than in non-STEM occupations, so in order to increase women’s financial independence more women should turn to these professions. Finally, the commercial companies have dual concern: (1) In R&D projects, one needs the diversity of people in the team to better analyze and solve problems. Excluding women from these teams is excluding the representation of 50% of society; (2) There is a huge and growing shortage of engineers and computer scientists; therefore, the aim to increase the number of students in these subjects would gain significantly from having more women.

One of the more interesting points of view raised in the discussion was the tension between the desire to increase the participation of women in STEM subjects and occupations, and the risk to perpetuate a “victim” mentality. Our research (Fast Forward) is seeking ways to overcome this dilemma by looking into the practices of teachers who are successful with female students and manage to maintain balanced classes over several years. Our findings show that there are common characteristics to these otherwise very different teachers, who in fact do not have a specific gender agenda.  These teachers’ “strategy” stands on two legs. One is the relationship they build with their students, as individuals and as a group, and the one they create between the students and the subject matter. The other leg is the clearly defined setting (order and organization, content requirements, behavioral requirements). It is important to note that this definition relates to boundaries and rules and it still leaves room for creativity and imagination, “a well-defined mess,” as mentioned by Prof. Renne Hobbs.

The findings have made us all very optimistic towards overcoming the gender gap in STEM subjects – even without big budget or major changes, teachers can make a difference simply by being more aware of their actions and influence.

This story and more are part of our special EdTech Mindset magazine, dedicated to the Shaping The Future 3 events we held in June 2015. Read the complete magazine here.