Gendered study choice: a literature review. A review of theory and research into the unequal representation of male and female students in mathematics, science, and technology

Abstract

This article presents an overview of the recent literature on gendered patterns of academic choice in mathematics, science, and technology. It distinguishes in this literature microlevel, macro-level, and institutional explanations. Micro-level explanations focus primarily on psychological constructs, that is, variables at the level of the individual students. Macro-level explanations focus primarily on socioeconomic conditions and cultural understandings of gender roles. Institutional explanations focus on design characteristics of (national) education systems. After a presentation of these perspectives and of recent research progress that has been made, the authors critically discuss the lacunae that still exist in explaining cross-national variety, and provide suggestions for designing future research in this field.Keywords: gender; education; academic choice; mathematics; science and technology Introduction Female participation in higher tertiary education has increased rapidly over the past decades.1 Currently, about 56% of all students in the European Union are women, and this figure is still rising (Eurostat, 2010). Yet, this increase in female student participation does not apply to all academic fields. In mathematics, science, and technology (MST), where women have always been underrepresented, their participation rate has actually decreased over the last years, from 41% at the end of the 1990s, to 38% in 2010 (Eurostat, 2010). The relative decline of women in MST is generally regarded as undesirable as it contrasts with European ambitions of achieving gender equality and a highly skilled, innovative society (European

Comparing the gender gap in educational attainment: the impact of emancipatory contexts in 33 cohorts across 33 countries

“…A comparison of people from different birth cohorts living in various countries, however, could provide an excellent opportunity to study how men's and women's educational attainment is affected by contextual factors. As genetic biological features and cognitive talents likely are very similar between Western countries and are unlikely to change markedly over (relatively few) birth cohorts, they seem implausible as an explanation of trends and country differences in the male-female educational gap (Penner, 2008;Yazilitas, Svensson, De Vries, & Saharso, 2013).…”

The postmodern perfectionist, the pragmatic hedonist and the materialist maximalist: understanding high school students’ profile choices towards or away from mathematics, science and technology (MST) fields in the Netherlands

“…School systems which are highly differentiated, that is, track students from an early age into different streams and levels, tend to produce more gender inequality than countries with less differentiated systems (Bradley and Charles 2004;Charles 2011;Webbink 2009, 2011;Van Langen, Rekers-Mombarg, and Dekkers 2008;Wöβmann 2009). Other research findings also show that in countries where pupils are given more freedom to choose between alternative trajectories, patterns of educational choice are found to be more gendered (Abbiss 2009;Van de Werfhorst, Sullivan, and Cheung 2003;Van Langen and Dekkers 2005;Van Langen, Rekers-Mombarg, and Dekkers 2008; for a more detailed description of these findings, see also Yazilitas et al 2013).…”

“…The unequal representation of female students in MST used to be attributed to a presumed lesser aptitude for these subjects, but it is obvious now from a vast body of research literature that this explanation does not hold (Yazilitas et al 2013). Still, girls more often than boys believe that they have no talent for MST (for an overview see Singh et al 2007).…”

“…Interviews followed a semi-structured scheme for which a topic list was compiled based on an earlier literature study (Yazilitas et al 2013). The interviewer started with a short explanation about the research and her role as researcher.…”

“…The research literature provides different explanations for this gender imbalance in MST (for an overview, see Yazilitas et al 2013). Explanations at the level of the individual refer to individual student characteristics.…”