(M)any women on the site?

[EdEarl]

But I would stop at actually trying to encourage people who have no real interest in science. I would say the same about any underrepresented group in any collective.

It is unclear how one encourages people to become scientists, except by educating them about science and letting them decide to make a career move, perhaps with advice from a career counselor. IMO everyone should get a basic education in science, as part of their elementary and high school education. Beyond that, it is their choice.

[WWLabRat]

It is unclear how one encourages people to become scientists, except by educating them about science and letting them decide to make a career move, perhaps with advice from a career counselor. IMO everyone should get a basic education in science, as part of their elementary and high school education. Beyond that, it is their choice.

The problem is not that everyone isn't receiving basic science education, EdEarl. The problem is that what they are being taught is incomplete at best, incorrect at worst. An easy and ever prevalent indication of this is in middle school education when you are first learning the physics of motion. All of this is being taught with a complete disregard to opposing forces, without including gravitational forces, etc. I know that it's still elementary education, but that's also the problem. They are being taught incomplete information from the start which only furthers the students' ignorance as time goes on. As this ignorance continues, on into the university level, they are suddenly surprised when formulas and other information they thought to be true now no longer works. If you need another example of this, in elementary biology classes they are taught that ear lobes are genetically inherited when that isn't the case. Or that identical twins are completely identical, when in reality they are not.

 

Rather than push for a more gender equal science education, I'd strive for the education that they are being taught to be a bit more complete. It is up to the individuals, male and female alike, in science to then decide for themselves whether they want to further their knowledge and potentially increase the knowledge of others or to let someone else handle it.

 

I don't see how there is any gender inequality in the field of science. Most people only relate scientists to research when in fact there are so many other fields that use science than just that. There are those, for instance, that are in my line of work (wastewater treatment) who run the laboratories and the treatment plants. My manager is female. I may run the lab during the week, but she still runs the laboratory Monday mornings to check the samples collected over the weekend. Granted it is part engineering, but it's mostly a scientific field. There's also doctors, nurses, psychologists/psychiatrists, forensic officers, research and development for companies, etc. So, again I see the problem as being who's deciding what the problem is. Without a complete look at what types of scientific work there is, you're bound to miss what type of people are doing it.

[EdEarl]

WWLabRat, I absolutely agree that science education in communities before university level is poor. It is tragic that religious groups are attacking science education in the US and making it worse. Regardless of its quality, what about the system is teaching gender bias? If there are teachers teaches such a bias, then parents have the right to complain to the school system, and have the teacher censured and perhaps fired.

[WWLabRat]

If the teachers are teaching bias and blame moves to the parents for not complaining to the school system it would lead to a cyclical argument of who the blame goes to from there. From the parents it would then shift to the student because they could research the topics on their own. Having no one of higher knowledge to really guide them in their learning it would then shift back to the schools. Really, it's an all around failure to address the topic, imagined or not, as a whole.

 

And even then, it's not just science that experiences this same apathy for a complete education. Topics like History and English are just as susceptible to this ignorance as science is. In history, students are only being taught a focus of how events effected the United States (at least in America that's how it is, I can't speak for the Europe). In English, after middle school, students really only focus on the books and short stories that are written, not on the language itself. After I realized this in high school, I started attending summer school of my own will because the teacher actually taught the English language, not the books written in it.

 

Unfortunately, the blame game must continue because it's not just the teachers/parents/students/school system; it's also the curriculum the teachers are made to teach, the books they are told to teach from, and the individuals who write those books. But this blame could go on and on, but being a minor post in a forum doesn't give me the voice or authority to address these issues.

 

And we have gotten off topic... Sorry...

[Tridimity]

Unfortunately, the blame game must continue because it's not just the teachers/parents/students/school system; it's also the curriculum the teachers are made to teach, the books they are told to teach from, and the individuals who write those books. But this blame could go on and on, but being a minor post in a forum doesn't give me the voice or authority to address these issues.

 

 

I completely agree with this. I don't think that teachers ought to take full responsibility for these educational failings; the fundamental issues are systematic. Formal qualifications including high school diplomas (in the US) or GCSEs and A-Levels (in the UK) are important determinants of future employment prospects. Teachers obviously appreciate this and the better ones will also understand the deficiencies in the curriculum and in an educational system which teaches children what to remember rather than how to think. However, from the teachers' point of view, if they allocate too much of the very limited teaching time to teaching the Philosophy of Science then their pupils risk failing (absolutely or in relative terms) when it comes exam time. The teacher would therefore be responsible for the lowering of achievement in terms of formal qualifications and the subsequent lowering of employment opportunities for their pupils - this would probably weight heavily on their consciences and so results in them, too, playing along with the broken system. What needs to happen is to uncouple employment prospects from the achievement of qualifications that are grounded in the rote memorisation of current scientific facts - and begin to couple employment prospects with evidence on the part of the pupil that they understand how to think critically and scientifically. If I am successful in my application for the position of Science Teaching Assistant I think I might enquire as to whether it would be possible to allocate some classroom time specifically to teaching the basics of the nature of Science and how to think like a Scientist - even if it is only one lesson, that is better than none at all - and change can be incremental Admittedly, this has nothing to do with gender issues in Science so Mods you might like to move this post elsewhere, I don't know?