Research-Informed Practices for Inclusive Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Classrooms: Strategies for Educators to Close the Gender Gap

The underrepresentation and attrition of women students in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields is a widely acknowledged, complex problem for which solutions will be multi-faceted. However, while a large body of research examines factors that influence girls’ and women’s experiences in these fields, many STEM educators at the K-12 level may be unfamiliar with the most recent research on gender’s relation to STEM classes. This paper aims to bridge research to practice by identifying strategies for educators as they work to capture students’ interest in STEM and retain students who are already interested. Seven “key practices” for creating gender-inclusive STEM classrooms were identified through a comprehensive literature review of social science research in gender and education. This research indicates, moreover, that the benefits of most practices can be broadened to all STEM students. The paper begins with an overview of the conceptual and methodological approach to the literature review process, and then presents and discusses the seven practices and supporting research. We then turn to recommending implementation strategies for educators to make courses more inclusive. The strategies are followed by a brief outline of suggested directions for future research. Introduction and Background According to the United States Department of Commerce, “Although women fill close to half of all jobs in the U.S. economy, they hold less than 25 percent of STEM jobs. This has been the case throughout the past decade, even as college-educated women have increased their share of the overall workforce”. The gender gap in STEM employment is not an anomaly; it reflects the disparity in the relative numbers of men and women pursuing STEM education, of which the K12 years, particularly high school, are this paper’s focus. Female high-school students are more likely to aspire to attend college than are their male counterparts, and young women enroll in college, persist, and graduate from it at higher rates as well. So why does this STEM-specific gap exist? This paper employs the tools of “gender analysis” to address this question. Gender analysis provides a framework for thorough analysis of the differences between women’s and men’s “gender roles, activities, needs, and opportunities in a given context” to eliminate the role of false assumptions and stereotypes. Gender analysis seeks to achieve equity rather than equality in that gender equity accounts for the differences in women’s and men’s “life experiences, needs, issues, and priorities”. Gender analysis in STEM education allows us to more deeply understand the effects of existing STEM programs and new STEM initiatives: whom they are most affecting and in precisely what P ge 23042.2 ways. This knowledge provides policymakers, educators, parents, and students with the tools necessary to determine how to, for example, allocate limited funding, write a successful curriculum, or avoid reinforcing counterproductive stereotypes in the home or classroom. All of this contributes to the ultimate goal of creating classrooms that better support the growth of young women engineers and scientists, and leads to three major societal benefits. The first benefit is about sheer numbers: retaining more women in STEM while maintaining the numbers of men results in more engineers and scientists for the future. This is important for the U.S. to maintain competitiveness in the global economy that is becoming increasingly technologydriven. The second major benefit is that a more diverse set of scientists and engineers can better represent the population and bring new perspectives on identifying problems and designing solutions. This diversity of ideas is crucial to innovation and to equitable consideration of the needs of women and men. A third benefit is greater satisfaction and fulfillment for some individuals because without the negative effect of social norms or stereotypes, some students may be more inclined to study what truly interests them. There are three concepts that are fundamental to our use of gender analysis in this paper. The first is the distinction between the terms “sex” and “gender”. Sex refers to biological and physical characteristics and is associated with the words “male” and “female”. Meanwhile, gender refers to socially constructed roles, norms, and attributes, and is associated with “masculine” and “feminine”. In much of the research discussed in this paper, study participants are classified by sex but differences in the dependent variable (achievement, self-efficacy, etc.) are attributed to gender, that is, to social and cultural forces that differentially shape women’s and men’s behaviors and attitudes. While this may seem like a subtlety, clarity in attributions of differences between men and women students has huge implications regarding the solutions to motivating students and eliminating the gender gap. If it is not made clear to educators, parents, and students that differences in educational settings tend to be gender-, not sex-based, then the differences are likely to perpetuate themselves through the belief that the differences are natural and inherent. However, if the emphasis is placed on the role of social and cultural factors (“gender-based”) then the attitude shifts to one of empowerment and transformation in the education system and society. The second fundamental concept is the importance of considering both how the environment creates and affects gender differences and how it may affect men and women differently. In The Gender Gap in College, Linda Sax notes a tendency that affects our understanding of gender differences. The inclination is to focus on descriptive comparisons of women and men, rather than to focus on the environmental forces producing gender differences. That is, studies tend to compare college men and women in terms of their characteristics and abilities, such as assertiveness or mathematical competence, but pay little attention to the ways in which various experiences may contribute to those gender differences. This practice... falls short of documenting the biological, cultural, or sociological factors that may explain the observed dissimilarity. P ge 23042.3 Selected research in this paper presents not only how students’ educational experiences vary by gender, but also how the impact of a single educational experience differs for women and men. This is known as a “conditional” or “interaction” effect, which occurs when the influence of an environment or experience differs for different groups of people. Understanding these interactions helps in identifying the origins and perpetuation of the gender gap as well as in designing solutions. For example, Sax found that although “majoring in math-intensive fields strengthens men’s and women’s belief in their mathematical aptitude”, “the influence of these majors is stronger for women than men, suggesting that continued exposure to mathematics is particularly important for female students”. This indicates that there is an interaction between an individual’s gender and a math-intensive major. With this finding, we can glean new insights into particularly effective or important environments for women that may be less salient otherwise. The final point that must preface the study of gender differences is the importance of avoiding over-generalization because neither men nor women can be treated as one homogeneous group. Gender differences in STEM education cannot be fully understood without attention to race, ethnicity, and family income level or socioeconomic status. Moreover, we cannot overemphasize gender differences in light of other variables. Ohland et al. note that at the postsecondary level, gender differences are only one factor in engineering persistence, among institutional and racial differences. This paper focuses on inclusive STEM education with regard to gender but future research will probe differences by other variables more deeply.