Factors in life science textbooks that may deter girls' interest in science

Potter, Ellen F.; Rosser, Sue V.

doi:10.1002/tea.3660290705

Cited by 58 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Content analyses of depictions of scientists in secondary school textbooks (Potter & Rosser, 1992; R. R. Powell & Garcia, 1985) or in advertisements in the periodical Science (Barbercheck, 2001) have found relatively few images of women. Studies using the Draw-a-Scientist Test, in which participants are simply asked to draw a picture of a scientist, have likewise revealed that drawings more often depict men than women (e.g., Rahm & Charbonneau, 1997;Song & Kim, 1999;Thomas, Henley, & Snell, 2006).…”

Section: The Association Of Men With Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Stereotypes About Gender and Science

Carli

Alawa

Lee

et al. 2016

Psychology of Women Quarterly

330

162

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We conducted two studies and our primary goal was to assess the similarity between stereotypes about women and men and stereotypes about successful scientists. In addition, we examined the degree to which scientists, men, and women are seen as agentic or communal. Results revealed greater similarity between stereotypes about men and stereotypes about scientists than between stereotypes about women and scientists. Men and scientists were seen as highly agentic, women as highly communal, and scientists as less communal than either men or women. The higher the proportion of women in a scientific field, the more similar the stereotypes of scientists in that field were to stereotypes about women. Female participants perceived more similarity between women and scientists and judged women to be more agentic than male participants did. The results are consistent with role-congruity and lack-of-fit theories that report incompatibility of female gender stereotypes with stereotypes about high-status occupational roles. The results demonstrate that women are perceived to lack the qualities needed to be successful scientists, which may contribute to discrimination and prejudice against female scientists. A podcast conversation with the author of this article is available to PWQ subscribers on PWQ's website at

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Section: The Association Of Men With Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

Stereotypes About Gender and Science

Carli

Alawa

Lee

et al. 2016

Psychology of Women Quarterly

330

162

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…They have typically considered isolated characteristics of curriculum materials, such as the range of topics covered in the material (e.g., Chiapetta, Sethna, & Fillman, 1993), the level of difficulty of the writing (e.g., Vachon & Haney, 1991), the use of illustrations (e.g., Holliday, 1990), attention to student diversity (e.g., Bazler & Simonis, 1991;Potter & Rosser, 1992), or the extent of inquiry focus (e.g., Eltinge & Roberts, 1993).…”

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confidence: 99%

How well do middle school science programs measure up? Findings from Project 2061's curriculum review

2002

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The purposes of this study were to examine how well middle school programs support the attainment of key scientific ideas specified in national science standards, and to identify typical strengths and weaknesses of these programs using research-based criteria. Nine widely used programs were examined by teams of teachers and specialists in research on teaching and learning. Reviewers found that whereas key ideas were generally present in the programs, they were typically buried between detailed or even unrelated ideas. Programs only rarely provided students with a sense of purpose for the units of study, took account of student beliefs that interfere with learning, engaged students with relevant phenomena to make abstract scientific ideas plausible, modeled the use of scientific knowledge so that students could apply what they learned in everyday situations, or scaffolded student efforts to make meaning of key phenomena and ideas presented in the programs. New middle school science programs that reflect findings from learning research are needed to support teachers better in helping students learn key ideas in science. The criteria and findings from this study on the inadequacies in existing programs could serve as guidelines in new curriculum development. ß

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“…Other DAST research [2] has suggested texts can send messages to females that the math or science contributions of their gender are not as worthy as that of their male counterparts. In an extensive review of ive widely used seventh grade life science texts, Poter and Rosser [16] reported textbooks were gender biased with regard to pictures, text, language and accomplishments of individuals. Accomplishments of females were either missing, trivialized or criticized.…”

Section: Scientists In Trade Booksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mixed Messages for Our Next Generation of Scientists

Farland-Smith¹

2017

The Evolution of Media Communication

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Scientists have been in the media ever since Frankenstein in 1931. Today's youth may not have seen the original movie or read the book, but they have seen cartoon reiterations of the famous classic as the work has inspired numerous ilms, television programs, video games, characters in books and movies. The concept of the "mad scientist" creating a creature, monster, or weapon that eventually falls out of his control, leading to the scientist's eventual defeat or ruin, is a common theme in science-iction and comic books.Draw-A-Scientist protocols have been utilized by science education researchers to investigate learners' perceptions of scientists. This chapter discusses historical perspectives of scientists in the media, the methods for analyzing students' perceptions of scientists and how aspects of their illustrations relate students' perceptions of scientists. The discussion presented here is framed in the context in which young children hold a range of perceptions that are based on cultural inluences, and sometimes these images are limited, and sometimes they compete within the individual. The position of this author is that each of these three are interconnected with the others, support each other, and must be considered along with students' cultural background and science identity if these illustrations are to fulill any promise of its utility for research or instructional purposes.

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Factors in life science textbooks that may deter girls' interest in science

Cited by 58 publications

References 19 publications

Stereotypes About Gender and Science

Stereotypes About Gender and Science

How well do middle school science programs measure up? Findings from Project 2061's curriculum review

Mixed Messages for Our Next Generation of Scientists

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