“Balancing acts'': Elementary school girls' negotiations of femininity, achievement, and science

Abstract

There is international concern over persistent low rates of participation in postcompulsory science—especially the physical sciences—within which there is a notable underrepresentation of girls/women. This paper draws on data collected from a survey of more than 9,000 10/11‐year‐old pupils and 170 interviews (with 92 children and 78 parents) from a 5‐year study of children's science aspirations and career choice in England, to explore how gender interacts with girls' science aspirations. The research found that even though most children aged 10/11 years enjoy science, the majority already see science careers as “not for me.” Using a feminist poststructuralist theoretical lens, this paper explores the identity work undertaken by the minority of girls who do identify with science and who express science aspirations at this age. It is argued that dominant associations of science with “cleverness” and masculinity pressurize girls to balance their science aspirations with performances of popular heterofemininity to render them “thinkable” (and that this occurs only within narrow parameters, through identity performances as either “feminine scientists” or “bluestocking scientists”). The paper concludes by discussing potential challenges girls may face in sustaining “thinkable” identifications with science and wider implications for encouraging greater female participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 96: 967–989, 2012

Sciencey Girls: Discourses Supporting Working-Class Girls to Identify with Science

“…The girls appeared to have internalised science as a desirable future aspiration. These findings resonate with Archer et al, who argued that the "interplay between cultural discourses around gender and science in which science is configured as sexually appropriate" [84] (p. 980) plays an important role in identification and engagement with science for many South Asian girls. While femininity tends to be less compatible with the subjectivities of science, the "otherness" of ethnicity can help provide the exceptions to this [54].…”

“…This discursive strategy is interesting, because previous research has argued that girls' perception of science as non-nurturing and non-caring (and thus not feminine) presented a key challenge for many girls to identify with science. The literature has argued that girls negotiated their identification with the subject through performing femininity in less visible ways [1,84], or even performing masculinity [16], in order to better align their own performances with those considered integral to science.…”

Unpacking the career aspirations of Australian school students: towards an evidence base for university equity initiatives in schools

“…Much of the research on students' higher education aspirations focuses on specific careers rather than looking across careers. For example, recent studies have focused on understanding and raising the aspirations of girls for science, technology, engineering and mathematics careers (Archer et al, 2012;Broadley, 2015;Cheryan, Master, & Meltzoff, 2015) and on the underrepresentation in medicine of students from low SES areas (Greenhalgh, Seyan, & Boynton, 2004;Mathers & Parry, 2009) and disadvantaged backgrounds (Griffin & Hu, 2015). In nursing and teaching, studies have focused on motivations (McLaughlin, Moutray, & Moore, 2010;Richardson & Watt, 2006) and other influences on the choice of career (Bullough & Hall-Kenyon, 2011;Mooney, Glacken, & O'Brien, 2008).…”

‘Unthinkable’ Selves: Identity boundary work in a summer field ecology enrichment program for diverse youth

“…Even with overwhelming constraints of structures shaping daily interactions, practices, and meanings, youth exert some intentionality, making choices and creating meanings and narratives about themselves, marking some identities 'thinkable' and others 'unthinkable' (Archer et al, 2012). Doing herpetology constituted, at the very least, a type of 'action boundary' crossing-at the very edges of what the youth participants previously considered themselves doing.…”