Girls in STEM is failing both girls and STEM? 99

[moltenmetal]

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/com...m-culture-is-failing-both-girls-and-stem.html

Read the article, THEN discuss...

Growing up, I increasingly saw my good grades as a trap locking me into a single career: STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). It felt like a dystopian YA novel, and my high school report card was The Choosing. A’s in math and science? Here are your jeans and sweatshirt.

Well-meaning people lied to me. They said computer science was a great work-from-home career if I wanted children (when in fact a majority of women quit STEM because the culture of poor work-life balance makes it too difficult to raise a family), that STEM careers are secure (actually the industry has frequent layoffs and is very competitive), and more....

 

[hokie66]

Kilpack was also quoted as saying that the students picked the speakers they wanted. Is it just the design of the poster that offends?

 

[beej67]

So was this a "women in math" club, comprised by women who want to learn math? Or was it a "math club" hosting a panel on "women in math?"

The distinction is pretty important. If the former, it would be very difficult, and indeed counterproductive, to run a club for women in math and have it only learn math from women in math.

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[IRstuff]

"indeed counterproductive"

Whoa... This paper suggests the exact opposite:

http://faculty.wwu.edu/kriegj/Econ. Documents/Teacher and Student Gender.pdf

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[3DDave]

I think it's considered counterproductive because of the limit on the number of available speakers; more so if the most qualified person in any sub-field wasn't a woman.

 

[CWB1]

indeed counterproductive, to run a club for women in math and have it only learn math from women in math.

Whoa... This paper suggests the exact opposite

Looks to me like that paper supports it being counterproductive.

These findings cast doubt on the argument that teachers instruct students differentially based upon student gender.

 

[beej67]

The paper is about 4th graders. I'm going to guess that the "math club" or "women in math club" at the university is a different animal than 4th grade elementary education. My point was that if a majority of mathematicians are men, then women are unlikely to close any gaps with men by excluding men from the people from whom they're learning math.

Let me break it down more simply for you folks, just so we're all clear:

(women in math club) (learning general math) (from men, or, you know, whoever) = (good)
(general math club) (learning about women in math) (from men) = (bad)


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[HamburgerHelper]

I got side tracked from listening to John Carmack , of Id software and Doom and wolfenstien and now Oculus Vr, give talks on the status of the industry in VR. Carmack goes into how things can be improved and optimized. Carmack is a guy obsessed with getting the very most out of the hardware and VR is a much more difficult processingwise challenge than standard 3d shooters.

Anyways, I got sidetracked into a programming talk given by a very old and established programmer ,Bob Martin, and he got talking about how things in the industry used to be. (

https://youtu.be/ecIWPzGEbFc?t=2509).

One of the things that was kind of interesting was that when programming first started, it hadn't been taught in schools so it drew in people established in other disciplines. These people were older and were much more disciplined at writing proper code, keeping schedule, ect. They had worked in the business and understood what was needing from their software to be useful to the business. The pull into the programming early on was more balanced and he had worked at places were it was about 50/50. He gets talking about how some of the reasons this might have happened, low pay, long hours,intense focus required, high stress, ect. I don't know how similar this is to engineering but there was more diversity in programming early on and then it disappeared.

 

[IRstuff]

Here's some food for thought. It's behind a paywall, but it's a RAND analysis of the supposed benefits of STEM in high school, which appear to be non-existent, at least, for the subject segment of the population.

"ABSTRACT
Our study assesses whether high school science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses provide non-college bound youth with the skills and training necessary to successfully transition from high school into the STEM economy. Specifically, our study estimates the effects that advanced math, advanced science, engineering, and computer science courses in high school have on the probability that non-college bound youth will obtain employment in the STEM economy and on wages within two years of graduating from high school. Our findings indicate that STEM coursework is unrelated with the probability of securing a job in the STEM economy and is unrelated with wages two years post high school graduation."

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[GregLocock]

"non-college bound youth". Is that result really surprising?

Cheers

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[JohnRBaker]

I'm not really surprised due to the fact that I suspect that the vast majority of the people who would first take and then do well in a high school STEM program would go on to college. Almost by definition, the non-college bound would probably not, at least not in significant numbers, be the students that you would find in your typical STEM program.

That being said, I do have to say that there are certainly exceptions, since all I have to do is look at my own family to see that. Now while it's true that this thread was ostensibly focused on girls in STEM programs, it would appear that the study IR referenced was not limited to one gender so my comments should not out out line. In our case we have three sons who are sufficiently grown so that we can look at the impact of their educations on their career choices and successes.

Our oldest, who just turned 48 last week, did not attend college. In fact, we had a hard time keeping him in school as he really didn't like it. In the 2nd grade he was diagnosed as having 'learning disabilities', including being dyslexic and having a hearing lose. The hearing lose was treated medically but he was still left with a 15% deficiency and while he attended therapy to address the dyslexia there was only so much that they could do and this left a sort sigma on him, not the least of which was having to ride the so-called 'retard bus' to school for the next four years or so. He was finally 'main-streamed' in Junior High, but by then his opinion of school was set. The only thing that keep him from failing altogether was that he had a well above average IQ and he did work hard even if it frustrated him. In the end, since he was obliviously not going to college, he took advantage of an option that upon turning 18, if he passed what was basically a GED exam, he could get his diploma and leave school early, which he did, passing the test with flying colors despite us having been warned that most students in our son's situation failed. So he turned his part-time job as a chef into a full-time one, but that only lasted a couple of months since he had been talking to the Army recruiter and he finally decided to enlist, where he spent four full years in the infantry, being discharged a fairly well-decorated Sargent despite never being in actual combat. He loved the Army and while he didn't reenlist he always said that the Army taught him was that nothing was impossible if you just put your mind to solving the problem before you, since in the Army, you had NO choice but to succeed. He immediately went back to that job as a chef and today he's an executive with a large restaurant/hospitality corporation.

Son number two, who will be turning 48 in December, was the exact opposite of his older brother. He loved school from the very beginning and was also being pushed into the more advanced classes, first in what they used to call the GATES program and then in high school, taking a heavy load of AP classes. He graduated from high school with honors and immediately enrolled in the Cal State system and four years later got his BA in Psychology, again with honors and while he originally planned to attend graduate school, because there's really very little that you can do with just a BA in Psychology, he had by then decided that he was an 'artist' only in his case it was an art where he could actually earn a living, as a pastry chef. He had been working since high school in restaurants, the one thing he did share with his older brother, and by the time he got his degree he felt that that was his true calling, so he moved to Napa Valley, enrolled in a Baking & Pastry Arts program at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America at their Greystone Academy) and graduated 30 weeks later. He has since worked at many different places around the world refining his baking skills and is currently working as the Executive Pastry Chef at a large Los Angeles catering company as well as teaching Baking & Pastry Arts two nights a week at the L.A. Art Institute.

And our youngest son, who will turn 40 in June, we had the hardest time keeping him in school, not because of academic issues, but other more trying ones. Up until high school we had no problems at all, he was a good student, he got along with everyone, teachers really liked him, but from the first day in high school he changed. He was big man on campus both with the girls and other things (lets put it this way, he did a lot of after-class 'chemistry' experiments). We finally had to send him off, against his will, to a private lock-up high school in Utah (one of the only places where schools like that are legal) to try and break the cycle he was in. Again he was very smart, probably the smartest of the three in terms of IQ, but he was a wild kid. However, the 'intervention' worked and he was able to finally return home and finish high school with, in the end, a good academic record, but he showed no interest in college. He was part of that first generation of kids where they had access to computers at home and he latched onto that with a passion. Even while still in school, he was getting jobs doing computer work. He did work for the school, working in their publishing operation after classes (and getting paid). His senior year he had a job working for a mortgage company at night, updating and downloading files to their main servers in the Bay area (this was before the high-speed web so they had to do this using dial-ups, thus the night work) and again he was getting paid really well. When he finished high school he worked for several different companies, all with computers, most on the systems side, installing and updating hardware and eventually setting up networks and servers. Before be was 25 years old, he was already making six figures, but his weaknesses remained and having money like that was not good for him and he has crashed hard several times, but he manages to survive, get clean and start over. He's been pretty stable the last five years or so and is currently working as the IT Director at a local subsidiary of a large German high-tech company here in SoCal. He also does personal IT work for several very well-to-do families who hire people like him to take care of their home systems.

Anyway, my point is that of our three son's, while only two of them would be considered to have spent any real amount of time in STEM classes (#2 and #3), of the two that did NOT go to college (#1 and #3), #3 is definitely working in a STEM career and while he's currently not making the most money of the three, as that would be #1, he is doing very well for himself considering the demons he's had to overcome and which still impact him today (he has some chronic but self-inflicted health issues). And I guess of more of a lesson is that some things haven't really changed; our oldest son, who never went to college and except for his Army time, has worked basically for the same company, he has achieved a very high level of success, both in terms of responsibilities and compensation but he also works the hardest. And our second son, with the most education, is earning the least and has never been in one job for more than 3 or 4 years. However, of the three, he's probably the happiest with his situation.

Sorry for the long missive, but...

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
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[IRstuff]

"Is that result really surprising?"

No, it's not. It's confirmation that the whole STEM push isn't demand driven at all.

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[3DDave]

https://arstechnica.com/science/201...-understand-science-want-their-kids-to-do-it/

 

[JohnRBaker]

We learned something interesting earlier this month when we visited our oldest son and his family near Houston. They have four girls and while they've all done really well in school, their youngest (she's 12 years old), who's in the 7th grade, has been truly outstanding (she has never gotten less than an A in any class during her time at school). Over the last couple of years she has been given additional opportunities by the schools as well as extra testing. She's currently in all advanced classes and while these are not officially labeled as AP classes (I guess those are limited to high school students), they are as close as you can get. What we found really interesting is that there are apparently major universities who follow these students, even as early a junior high. In the case of our granddaughter, the school was contacted by Duke University and have put her, and one other girl in her class, into a special program where they are monitoring their academic progress more closely. Now it wasn't exactly clear whether this is part of some research program being conducted by Duke or whether perhaps this is something like schools watching the progress of outstanding athletes in anticipation of offering them future sports scholarships, only in this case, it would be an academic scholarship.

One of the things that has happened recently is that our granddaughter was asked to take the ACT test (Duke covered the cost), the same test that Seniors take as they prepare their applications to attend college. And she, and the other girl in her class, took the test at the same time as the seniors did from her school district. She said it felt weird to be setting there with kids 5 and 6 years older than she was. Just before we left for home she got the results of the tests and while her overall score was not at the level that a graduating senior would need to get into a top rated school, she did score above the mean in math and reading. She had already told us that the results of some testing that she had last fall showed that she was already reading at an 11th grade level, and so she was not surprised with her ACT reading score, and since math is he best class, the math scores where what you could expect.

Anyway, it's going to be interesting to see what feedback she gets from Duke and what might happen next. We know already that she has been informed that next year, when she's in the 8th grade, that she'll be taking some of her classes at the high school.

And don't thinks she's some sort of nerd, as she on the Junior High Cheer Leading Squad.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[CWB1]

Now it wasn't exactly clear whether this is part of some research program being conducted by Duke or whether perhaps this is something like schools watching the progress of outstanding athletes in anticipation of offering them future sports scholarships, only in this case, it would be an academic scholarship.

That's a very common grant program through the federal government, the universities' main interest in it is selling summer programs for "gifted" students afterward. I cant comment on implementation elsewhere but in the northeast most of the eligible top 10% of every district's 7th graders take the fall offering of either the ACT or SAT. I took the SAT as did my siblings in 7th and again in 10th. When I took it as a 7th grader in '96 I remember being really proud to have scored a 1150/1600 simply bc it was slightly better than one of my older brother's friends.

 

[JohnRBaker]

My Alma Mater has one of those summer youth programs with a special emphasis on 'women in engineering' and my wife and I tried to get at least two of our granddaughters, including the one mentioned in my previous post and her older sister, to attend at least of one of the week-long programs this past summer. Unfortunately, both girls, in addition to being Junior and Senior High cheerleaders respectively, also compete in competitive cheer and their mother insists that spending their summers at 'cheer camp' is more important than any sort of academic program, despite both girls being outstanding students. In fact, their academic achievements are all that more impressive when you consider that they spend two or three nights each week, plus weekends, at cheer practice, and then travel all around the state and even to places like Atlanta and New Orleans at least once a month for competitions. When we were there last week we tried to convince their mother to let them attend the program this coming summer. We even offered to cover the cost of the program as well as their travel expenses, but she said she couldn't make any sort of commitment because she didn't know yet which 'cheer camps' she was going to send the girls to this year. We've about given-up.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[beej67]

This is pretty fascinating. I haven't read the full study yet:

https://digest.bps.org.uk/2018/03/1...n-fairer-societies-fewer-women-enter-science/

Here's the full study:

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0956797617741719

I think it's behind a paywall.

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[GregLocock]

Wow

If that holds up (the R^2 of that straight line fit looks pretty horrible - a digression, of those points only about 7 are actually affecting the gradient) it sort of supports the view that given the choice young women would rather do something other than STEM degrees. In which case this thread is merely rediscovering that girls and boys want different things. I could have told you that when I was 5!

Cheers

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[JohnRBaker]

I suspect that from the use of the term "fairer societies", that this might indicate that in those countries deemed to be such, that there may be more opportunities for higher paying jobs for women outside of the so-called STEM fields. For example, in that first chart referenced by beej67 above, several of the Scandinavian/Nordic countries are highly rated as being more gender-equal yet show a definite low number of women in STEM related fields. I've read that these same Scandinavian/Nordic countries are noted for paying very good wages to both elementary and secondary education teachers, areas which are often dominated by women. If women feel that they can earn a good living in a field where they are already very comfortable working in, why would they expend the additional effort that is often required, to say nothing of having to overcome the misogynistic environment that often dominates more technical fields, particularly engineering fields like Civil and Mechanical, or perhaps to a lessor degree, Chemical and Computer Science?

While this is my own personal opinion, I've worked with women in engineering (for several years my boss was a women), I suspect that many of them chose to be engineers/scientists because of the opportunity to achieve a higher standard-of-living than if they had been confined to fields more traditionally occupied by women. I'm not saying that there aren't exceptions, just that human nature being what it is, shouldn't the idea of taking the path-of-least-resistance be attractive to anyone if the prospect of financial success was not directly related to the effort needed to achieve it?

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[moltenmetal]

I'm puzzled by the absence of Canada from the graph- as a G7 country with a substantial population (far greater population than many of the listed nations) and with good sources of data for this sort of thing, its absence is very strange. I wonder if it lands right underneath one of the other dots on the graph.

 

[nonplussed]

supports the view that given the choice young women would rather do something other than STEM degrees

Yes, for the typical woman this is obviously the case and has been scientifically proven. But sociology professors believe it is their intrinsic duty to oppose evidence based science and they have created their own 'science' which fights against evidence. Just watch "

https://youtu.be/p5LRdW8xw70?t=1960",

sociology professors are asked why they ignore scientific evidence showing that there is at least some biological factors that affect differing interests between sexes. They do not care for evidence, they believe in their own hypothesis and ideology that men and women are exactly identical in every respect apart from physical sexual organs. They suppose the only reason men and women act in any way different is due to culture (i.e. the oppressive patriarchy). How come more women don't want to sit by themselves in front of a computer 12 hours a day calculating imaginary forces and worrying about whether their design is wrong and will collapse killing hundreds of people? Must be sexism.

I'm puzzled by the absence of Canada from the graph

Would Canada even allow scientific studies looking at the gender equality paradox? According to Trudeau most Canadian miners are non-white women. If you state otherwise you are being sexist and discriminatory (see the attachment). Canada now even has laws of compelled speech forcing the use of gender pronouns.

On a side note, my partner is currently finishing her PhD in Chemistry in Sweden. In her department about 80% of the masters and PhD students are female. However, there is only one female professor out of about 20 professors. The only female post docs state that the only reason they are doing post doc is because they could not find a job in the private sector. None of the females want to become professors. They say they do not want to work 12 hours a day 7 days a week and sacrifice their whole life just to get their name in some publications and get a professorship.

It is a rule in the Swedish Universities that, at the end of the PhD, out of 1 opponent and 3 reviewers at 2 must be female (to promote equality). Unfortunately there are so few female professors in my partner's specific field that she cannot find 2 and so her defence and graduation is indefinitely on hold. So much for female promotion.