Do Female Role Models Reduce the Gender Gap in Science? Evidence from French High Schools

Breda, Thomas; Grenet, Julien; Monnet, Marion; Effenterre, Clémentine Van

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3584926

Cited by 37 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 18 publications

(29 reference statements)

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“…One small starting point is to be cautious when describing peers, children, or students as creative or brilliant because of the potential for bias in these descriptions. Exposing boys and girls to successful and arguably talented female role models is also likely to be a successful practical solution [see, e.g., (36,67,68)].…”

Section: Final Comments and Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The stereotype that girls lack talent: A worldwide investigation

Napp

Breda

2022

Sci. Adv.

Self Cite

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Recent research has shown that there exist gender stereotypes that portray men as more brilliant or inherently talented than women. We provide a large-scale multinational investigation of these stereotypes and their relationship with other gender gaps. Using a survey question asked to more than 500,000 students in 72 countries, we build a measure of the stereotypes associating talent with men and show that they are present in almost all studied countries. These stereotypes are stronger among high-achieving students and in more developed or more gender-egalitarian countries. Similar patterns are observed for gender gaps in competitiveness, self-confidence, and willingness to work in an ICT (Information and Communication Technology)–related occupation. Statistical analysis suggests that these three latter gender gaps could be related to stereotypes associating talent with men. We conclude that these stereotypes should be more systematically considered as a possible explanation for the glass ceiling.

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Section: Final Comments and Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The stereotype that girls lack talent: A worldwide investigation

Napp

Breda

2022

Sci. Adv.

Self Cite

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“…The following section introduces our categorisation of actions and discusses initiatives that have demonstrated effectiveness in either encouraging women into technology-focused courses or assisting in the retention of women on these courses. In limited cases, relevant initiatives have been considered from disciplines such as general STEM [33,34,35]; engineering [36,37,38,39]; or where women were not the focus but impact was significant [40,41,42,43,26,44,45].…”

Section: Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[64], [46], [55], [58], [65], [22], [58] [22], [34] Influence & Models [7], [39] Support Mentors [55], [64], [49], [24], [37], [25], [66] [37], [25] Advertising [12], [64], [39], [55],…”

Section: Rolementioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing the "Leaky Pipeline": A Review and Categorisation of Actions to Recruit and Retain Women in Computing Education

Berry,

McKeever,

Murphy

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Gender imbalance in computing education is a well-known issue around the world. For example, in the UK and Ireland, less than 20% of the student population in computer science, ICT and related disciplines are women. Similar figures are seen in the labour force in the field across the EU. The term "leaky pipeline" is often used to describe the lack of retention of women before they progress to senior roles. Numerous initiatives have targeted the problem of the leaky pipeline in recent decades.This paper provides a comprehensive review of initiatives related to techniques used to boost recruitment and improve retention among women in undergraduate computer science and computing courses in higher educational institutions. The review covers 350 publications from both academic sources and grey literature sources including governmental guidance, white papers and non-academic reports. It also includes sources in languages other than English.The primary aim was to identify interventions or initiatives (which we have called "actions") that have shown some effectiveness. A secondary objective was to structure our findings as a categorisation, in order to enable future action discussion, comparison and planning.A particular challenge faced in a significant portion of the work reviewed was the lack of evaluation: i.e. the assessment of the direct relationship between the initiatives undertaken and the outcomes on retention or recruitment. There are only a limited number of studies that include a control group and these tend to focus on one particular intervention or action. In addition often the work presents a number of actions that were implemented and it is difficult to determine which action produced most impact. Considering these challenges, actions were identified that had some level of evaluation with positive impact, including where the evaluation was by measuring feedback.The actions were categorised into four groups: Policy, Pedagogy, Influence & Support and Promotion & Engagement. Policy actions require support and potentially structural change and resources at organisation level. This can be at a department or school level within a higher level institution, and not necessarily just at the higher institution level. Pedagogy related actions are initiatives that are related to the teaching of computer science and technology in terms of curriculum, module delivery and assessment practice. The Influence and Support category includes actions associated with ways to influence women to choose computing at third level and once enrolled to support and encourage them to stay in the field. Finally, Promotion and Engagement actions are initiatives to promote computer science and technology based courses and involve engagement and outreach with external stakeholders such as industry, communities and schools.We present our categorisation, identifying the literature related to actions under each category and subcategory. We discuss the challenges with evaluating the direct impact of actions and outline how this work leads toward...

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“…Bidirectional public engagement activities, such as mentoring high school students, are effective for increasing female high school students’ intentions to major in a STEM-related subject (Breda et al, 2021). Female scientists are often encouraged to engage in these mentorship roles so that they can serve as role models for young girls (AbiGhannam, 2016; Fogg-Rogers et al, 2017).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

I am a scientist . . . Ask Me Anything: Examining differences between male and female scientists participating in a Reddit AMA session

Hubner

Bond

2021

Public Underst Sci

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This article investigates interactions between scientists and the online community Reddit. Given that past research on computer-mediated communication between scientists and the public found that male scientists are typically more popular in online spaces than female scientists, we examined differences in popularity as well as potential gendered differences in communication style. Specifically, we examined 269 Reddit “Ask Me Anything” sessions as well as the comments linked with each session ( n = 125,580). Overall, we find that male scientists receive more comments on their sessions, but the score an individual comment receives does not differ by gender. Similarly, we find that the message complexity of the comments does not differ by gender. Taken together, these suggest that Reddit AMA sessions might be an effective platform for both male and female scientists to engage with the public.

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Do Female Role Models Reduce the Gender Gap in Science? Evidence from French High Schools

Cited by 37 publications

References 18 publications

The stereotype that girls lack talent: A worldwide investigation

The stereotype that girls lack talent: A worldwide investigation

Addressing the "Leaky Pipeline": A Review and Categorisation of Actions to Recruit and Retain Women in Computing Education

I am a scientist . . . Ask Me Anything: Examining differences between male and female scientists participating in a Reddit AMA session

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