Etan-main text

Science policies in the European Union
Women in education
Women have been increasing their level of participation in higher education
across the EU and now constitute about half the student population.  There
are large differences between the sciences of course.  While it is easier to
find statistics on women in education than in employment in the sciences,
the categories used are sometimes problematic.  For example, the inclusion
of nursing, a highly feminised profession, in ‘medical sciences’ may in part
explain why of all the sciences, women are more likely to be found among
students of medical sciences than other branches.  Indeed, in Finland,
women constitute 84% of medical students in higher education: comparable
figures for Denmark are 80% and for the UK, 77%.  Women are under-
represented in mathematics and computer science and in ‘engineering and
architecture’ in all Member States.  Engineering is a particular cause for
concern.  There are, however, relatively more women on these courses in
Spain, Italy and Portugal than elsewhere (all figures from EC 1999: Annex 2;
original source Eurostat) (see also Figure 2.2).  As Anne-Marie Bruyas from
the Fondazione IDIS in Naples observes ‘According to the EUROSTAT
data, (girls) are well represented in biological and medical sciences (50-70%),
but they are under-represented in Mathematics and computer sciences,
Engineering.  Girls it seems prefer sciences linked to nature, human and
social matters’ (1999: 10).
Educating girls
At school level, there is currently widespread concern with the under-
achievement of boys, the low aspirations of girls, and gender stereotyping of
subjects and careers choices more generally.  The goal must be to enable
boys and girls to choose and do well in subjects of their choice, unimpeded
by stereotypes.  Making core subjects compulsory until the early teen years
can help to break down prejudices and ensure that girls remain in science
classes longer then they might if allowed to opt out earlier.  One of the
beneficial effects of the introduction of the National Curriculum in the UK
is that girls do science for longer (Arnot et al, 1999).
This still does not mean that they will necessarily choose science subjects
when given the choice.  There are important pedagogic issues to be
addressed, such as evidence that suggests girls are more interested in
problem oriented approaches.  Teachers might be encouraged to foster
better links with industry and the public service where appropriate in order
to help them bring practical applications into their teaching.  Some
literature suggests that in engaging with computers, boys will want to
‘master’ the machine, whereas girls will want to ‘understand’ it.  Awareness of
a range of learning styles, and especially gender tendencies may open up
new pedagogic approaches that might appeal better to girls.  The siting of
computing, as a subject, in maths departments in most European countries
has been deleterious for girls, given maths is one area that has traditionally
failed to attract girls.  Locating computers in language departments, which
would be just as logical, would certainly have exposed more girls to them
(Pelgrum and Plomb, 1991).  Role models are important to young people
choosing subjects at school and here, the relative lack of women as heads of
science departments in schools is problematic.  Indeed, there are more
women head teachers in Europe than there are heads of maths departments
in schools: this is problematic both for maths and of course for computing
(Pelgrum and Plomb, 1991).  In all of this, there is a danger of stereotyping
The National Curriculum
reduces sex segregation in
the UK
‘Up to the early 1980s boys and
girls occupied almost
completely different educational
tracks.  By 1994 most of these
differences had reduced,
although substantial gender
differences still remained in
subjects such as physics, craft,
design and technology (CDT),
economics, home economics
and social studies ... On the
whole the picture was one of
reduced sex segregation of
subject choice up to the age of
16.’
(Arnot et al, 1999, p 20).
‘When you are an astronaut,
people don’t care whether you
are a man or a woman’
Carolyn L. Huntoon, NASA.
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of both boys and girls.  The important point to note is that current systems
and pedagogies have a gender effect.  These need to be tackled for the
benefit of both boys and girls.
Research literature on girls’ subject and career choices in the UK illustrate,
first of all, that many disadvantaged young women do not perceive that they
have a choice to make.  The strength of the gender contract and sex
segregation in post compulsory education and training and in the labour
market itself offers ‘bounded’ choices (Holland, 1988; Rees, 1992).  Boys of
course are also affected by these factors, leading some to choose science
subjects when they are ill suited to them.  Moreover, girls and boys make
subject choices at a time when their personal development and the
construction of their sexual identity are at a highly sensitive stage: to opt for
a gender inappropriate course can threaten that identity.
© Jacky Fleming, from Be a bloody train driver, Penguin, 1991
The literature on the relative merits of single sex as opposed to co-
educational education for girls choosing science is mixed and confused.  All
too often, the issue is conflated with other factors such as class.  In the UK,
for example, single sex girls’ grammar schools were reasonably successful in
generating scientists.  By contrast, many all girl schools in Ireland have not
been adequately equipped to teach science.  Most schools in the EU now
are co-educational and some experiments have been conducted on the
impact of this, for example the Eureka project in Luxembourg.  There is a
general consensus that in terms of academic achievement, co-education is
good for boys but not so good for girls: this is notwithstanding the fact that
girls have caught up with and now are beginning to outperform boys!
Some schools have experimented with single sex computing clubs for girls:
they have proved successful in enabling girls to receive more attention and
to learn in their own style.  Boys do dominate classrooms and demand more
attention: there is plenty of research evidence on the inequitable allocation
of teachers’ time to boys and girls that demonstrates this.  This may reinforce
gender stereotypical subject choices.
There is work to be done, then, in stripping science subjects of their
gendered identity and finding methods, through the curriculum, and
through new approaches to pedagogy, to make science more attractive to
girls.  This is not the well-beaten track of trying to get girls to see the error
of their ways in eschewing science and engineering.  Rather, it is asking
Educating scientists, desterotyping science
Mobile classrooms
The “BioTech Mobil”, sponsored
by the State of Bavaria and the
Federal Ministry for Education
and Research in Germany, is a
mobile classroom used to
provide state of the art
information about bio and gene
technology to schoolchildren,
teachers, parents and other
interested individuals.  The
mobile classroom provides
hands on experience and is
outfitted with the latest
equipment with which up to 12
different key methods and
experiments can be performed.
In a 40 week period in 1997
and 1998 more than 11,000
schoolchildren and 28,000
other individuals visited the
BioTech Mobil in 128 different
locations.
http://www.biotechmobil.de
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