Giving girls the tools to succeed in STEM
A new initiative funded by the Australian Government aims to encourage girls to study and pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM). Journalist Mykeala Campanini investigates. The GiST (Girls in Stem Toolkit) is a website featuring resources for students, teachers and families to better understand the diverse STEM careers available to girls and to address the gender bias and stereotyping in science and maths that often begins in the early years of girls’ education. In Australia, women comprise only 16% of the STEM qualified population, with figures showing poor attraction to the field starts at an early age. Only 26.3% of girls in Year 12 are enrolled in Information Technology subjects, boys outnumber girls three to one in physics subjects and there are double the number of male students enrolled in mathematics. You can’t be what you can’t see Dr Rebecca Cooper, a Senior Lecturer in Science Education at Monash University in Melbourne, says girls’ development of confidence and
interest in STEM is impacted from an early age with bias and stereotyping significant barriers to more girls pursuing STEM careers. “Women are under represented in STEM professions, and this is problematic from both equity and economic perspectives,” Cooper said. “A more equal gender balance is associated with more productive STEM workplaces, and higher quality STEM research. “Girls really need to ‘see it to be it’ and ‘know it to go it’ – there are many STEM pathways that girls can take, but if they are not aware of them, how can they pursue them? “There is a need to overcome the stereotype that scientists and engineers should be male. “Careers are also often presented with a generic title such as scientist or engineer, when really there are finer grained categories that could be explored, for example, the work of a meteorologist is different to the work of a chemist, but they are both categorised as scientists.” A lack of diverse and visible women role models in STEM, from the classroom through to books and
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movies, as well as the perception that STEM fields are better suited to males – which can come from the bias of career counsellors, teachers and parents – also decrease the likelihood of girls pursuing STEM education. Australian Government Women in STEM Ambassador and Professor of Practice at the University of NSW in Sydney, Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith, said that while women are smashing it in their roles in the STEM field, they still feel like ‘others’. “Many women who work in STEM grew up with few, or even no female role models in their chosen field of expertise,” Harvey-Smith said. “We may have been the only woman in our physics class, or the only female apprentice on the worksite. “There are many cultural and systemic barriers to women pursuing STEM. Many of these are derived from the stereotypes that our society holds around desirable and proper behaviour and traits of girls and boys. “Girls don’t need any extra encouragement at school because they are really smart and perform well in a wide range of subjects, but often the career options in STEM can seem
