Research from the University of Pittsburgh was recently featured on Time Magazine’s website! What was it about? How cultural stereotypes lure women away from careers in science. The article’s message basically advocates the importance of women/girls and STEM education. The study by Ming-Te Wang and colleagues found that women have broader intellectual talents, which provides them with broader job opportunities.
The study found that women who general do better in the verbal section of the SATs, which was the majority of the analyzed group, were unlikely to pursue a career in science, technology, engineering or medicine (STEM). In addition, women who did better in the math portion were more likely to choose a STEM career.
The article stated:
The researchers also examined and controlled for other factors that might affect career choices such as the socioeconomic status of the participants’ parents, their own values when it came to balancing work and family, and their personal perceptions about their skills and interests; still, the breakdown between verbal and math skills remained a strong predictor of career choice.
But what interested the researchers most was the fact that more women than men tended to show aptitude in both math and language skills, and yet the rate of women choosing STEM careers remains low. Are women discouraged from these fields, or are they simply not interested in them for other reasons? To find out, the scientists also questioned participants about their math and English “self concepts,” or how good they thought they were at those subjects and how much they enjoyed them. People tend to play to their strengths: for those who think they are best at English, it may not matter that they may also be math geniuses compared with their peers. They’ll pick what comes easiest and gets the most support.
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