CHAPTER 3: REVIEWING THE LITERATURE: GENDER AND STEM IN HIGHER
3.3 Section 1: Reading women and STEM from a feminist stance
3.3.3 Under-representation of women in STEM in education
3.3.3.2 Increasing the presence of female academic teaching staff
Dee (2006, pp. 70-71) states that, according to a survey conducted in 223 public schools in USA, both male and female teachers, have been found to treat female and male students differently in the classroom, although women achieve higher grades when taught by female academic teaching staff and men achieve higher grades when taught by male academic teaching staff. Dee (2006, p. 73) found that female science teachers play an important role in encouraging female students in STEM, as the female students were more confident during classroom’s discussions. The learning
experiences of female students in STEM are coloured by academic teaching staff that stereotypically believe that STEM is more apt for men. Their pedagogical practices are gendered and can discriminate against women (Carrington, Tymms &
Merrell, 2008). The interest of female students in STEM subjects is also influenced by female students’ overall learning experience in educational institutions, particularly during early years of schooling, including STEM teachers, their teaching approaches and exposure to role models. Burke and Mattis (2007, p. 171) have observed that female engineering students praised female academic teaching staff, with nearly all students finding them helpful, encouraging and inspiring. Gender ideology, with normative gendered beliefs about gendered roles, may alter the relationships between academic teaching staff and female and male students.
According to Sonnert and Fox (2012, pp. 76-77), some young female students find it hard to attend engineering lectures due to the lack of female academic teaching staff as their prospective role models. According to Wang and Degol (2017), a wider exposure to female role models in STEM can inspire women to join STEM. The absence of role models and female teachers in STEM becomes an obstacle to women. As a result, the female students lose interest in doing the engineering field and, sometimes, this line of interpretation would envisage that only particularly confident, resilient and well-qualified female students would enter such fields. In the event that the female students continue with the engineering major, they would switch out of the field once they encounter difficulties with academic teaching staff.
This may also be a restriction to enrol for an engineering programme, as these students do not get the expected encouragement from the academic teaching staff.
According to Buabeng (2012, p. 134), academic teaching staff in STEM should teach mathematics and physics concepts well to encourage more women to study such fields. This inequality in the number of academic teaching staff influences the self- selection process of a specific field of study and may then lead to attrition.
According to Sithole, Chiyaka, McCarthy, Mupinga, Bucklein and Kibirige (2017, p.
55), “science students drop out when their hopes for academic success fade”.
Academic teaching staff are considered to have an especially prevailing impact on students’ self-beliefs and inspiration for STEM (Gunderson, Ramirez, Levine &
Beilock, 2012; Li, 1999; Tiedemann, 2002). According to the study of Nugent, Barker, Welch, Grandgenett, Wu and Nelson (2015, p. 1083), in which data were
collected from 800 students aged from 10 to 14 who attended robotics camps from 19 states in USA as part of a STEM education project, it was shown that the influence of support from academic teaching staff directly influences youth’s interest in STEM. Expectations of academic teaching staff may have an influence on students’ confidence and competence. The presence of female role models in STEM improves the participation of women in STEM and women’s views towards STEM careers are also enhanced (Cheryan, Siy, Vichayapai, Drury & Kim, 2011). Women may be unwilling to have a career in STEM due to a dearth of women (colleagues and mentors) amongst whom they can find a support system (Wang & Degol, 2017).
Besides the presence of female academic teaching staff in STEM, the influence of academic teaching staff in STEM and life-style principles also has an important part in women’s choice of fields of study.
Gender functions as one aspect of the socio-cultural setting in educational institutions. In the engineering field, gender is highlighted, particularly in the teaching and learning process (Dym, Agogino, Eris, Frey & Leifer, 2005, p. 107).
This does not mean that gender is the only aspect that academic teaching staff need to think about in their teaching but Helms Mills and Mills (2009, p. 171) propose that gender is indeed a crucial aspect. This claim occurs because gender is a set of assumptions that forms part of our lives and that is transferred unconsciously to other individuals during interactions. Thus, gender becomes a segment of the teaching and learning process in STEM where women do not feel comfortable in the classroom to speak out or to participate in class discussions and they are often less successful in examinations than their male peers.
It is therefore important to make academic teaching staff aware of the importance of knowing the views of students on their teaching for improvement. Some studies have pointed to the need for academic teaching staff to cater for gender inclusivity in their teaching process (Blair, Miller, Ong & Zastavker, 2017). Gender inclusivity includes continuous attention to the teaching and learning process by ensuring circumstances where no student is felt being left out or different (Mills, Ayre & Gill, 2008). Gender inclusivity in engineering majors must be integrated as part of a continuous process instead of a one-off process.
According to Thanacoody, Bartram, Barker and Jacobs (2006, p. 539), one main hindrance to the career progression of female academic teaching staff is associated with gender stereotypes even when evidence has shown that academics are doing well as leaders. Johnson (2000) has stated that women are equal to men in terms of innovation, charm and creativity. Cleveland, Stockdale, Murphy and Gutek (2000, pp. 42-43) argue that gender stereotypes are beliefs about the qualities attributed to men and women and these influence the opinion of individuals about men and women. The succession of women in senior academic roles depends on workplace strategies and cultures (Kubuabola, Rich & Shah, 2016, p. 78). This is more effective when women hold positions of power that were initially earmarked for men only in the engineering field. This was shown in the study of Wilson and King (2016, p.
190), which showed that black working-class women who are in positions of power are role models for other women. Although it is known that engineering has been conventionally a male field, in recent years the number of women is increasing gradually in the engineering field in the public universities in Mauritius.