Gender in STEM Education: A Data-Driven Learning Guide

Goal & Concept

Goal

This exercise explores gender participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, from high school through college and into the workforce, and whether participation has changed over the past 20 years. Crosstabulations and frequencies will be used.

Concept

Although the historic discrimination against girls and women in education has been eliminated for the most part, and schools have made much progress in eliminating gender bias from their policies, programs, and practices, there is evidence that females still have not achieved full educational equity.

One area where this becomes apparent is in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, where females continue to be under-represented even though girls and boys start out performing the same academically.

Examples of research questions about gender in education:

• How does gender affect educational experiences and opportunities?
• How are educational expectations and opportunities related to social views of gender?
• Are educational practices gendered, and if so, how do they affect student achievement?
• How do males and females differ in their attainment of degrees in STEM fields?
• What individual, family and school characteristics are related to students' attainment of a STEM major?
• How do young men and women differ in college trajectories toward or away from STEM?

Goal & Concept - Dataset - Application - Interpretation & Summary - Bibliography