Why So Few? Growth Mindset

The 2010 report entitled, Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), finds that girls’ interests in math and science are shaped by social and environmental factors. The first finding comes from the research of Dr. Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford University, who studies beliefs about intelligence. She finds that believing in the potential for intellectual growth, in and of itself, improves outcomes.

Dr. Dweck’s research provides evidence that a “growth mindset” as opposed to a “fixed mindset” benefits girls in math and science. The table lays out the differences between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Individuals with a “fixed mindset” believe that intelligence is static. Because of this, they want to always “look smart” and therefore, tend to avoid challenges, give up easily when they encounter an obstacle, see effort as fruitless, ignore feedback, and can be threatened by others’ success. In contrast, individuals with a “growth mindset” believe that intelligence can be developed. Because of this they want to learn more and, therefore, tend to embrace challenges, persist when they encounter obstacles, see effort as a path to mastery, learn from criticism, and be inspired by the success of others.

Why So Few? Scientific Workforce

The 2010 report entitled, Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), finds that women’s representation in the STEM workforce is uneven. This graph shows the percentage of women in selected STEM occupations between 1960 and 2000. In general, women’s overall representation has increased in all these occupations since the 1960s; however, in 2000, although women were well represented among biological scientists, for instance, they made up a small minority of engineers. These data come from the census, so the most recent data available are from 2000. Also, the definitions of the different occupations have changed slightly with each census.

Why So Few? Transition to College

The 2010 report entitled, Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), finds that despite the overall positive trends in high school, the transition to college is a critical time for young women in STEM. Women are less likely than men are to plan to declare a STEM major in college. In 2006 (the most recent data available), only about 15% of first-year female college students compared with more than a quarter (25%) of first-year male college students planned to declare a major in the physical sciences, mathematics or statistics, engineering, computer science, or the biological/agricultural sciences. If, for a moment, we did not consider the biological/agricultural sciences - indicated here in blue and the STEM area women are most likely to major in - only about 5% of first-year female students intend to major in a STEM area in college.

Why So Few? High School Foundation II

The 2010 report entitled, Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), reviews GPAs and high-stakes testing. The graph above shows students’ average GPA in high school math and science combined over time, by gender. High school girls now also earn higher GPAs in math and science, on average, than their male peers do. It is also important to note that average GPAs in math and science for all students are improving over time.

Unconscious Bias: the Studies from Sociology

                                               

Steinpreis, Anders & Ritzke (1999) published a pioneering study on unconscious bias and gender. Panels composed of male and female university psychology professors were asked to evaluate application packages for either "Brian" or "Karen" and determine the candidate’s suitability as an assistant professor. The panels preferred 2:1 to hire "Brian" over "Karen," even though the application packages were identical except for the name. When evaluating a more experienced record (at the point of promotion to tenure), the panel members expressed reservations four times more often for "Karen" than for "Brian." So not only was unconscious bias operating, it got stronger with seniority. The study determined that unconscious bias would have a repeated negative effect on "Karen’s" career.

Why So Few? High School Foundation I

The 2010 report entitled, Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), describes how girls’ and women’s performance and participation in STEM fields have changed over time. Women have made tremendous progress in education and the workplace during the past 50 years, including progress in scientific and engineering fields.

Although, historically, boys outperformed girls in math and science, the gender gap has narrowed over time, and today girls are doing as well as boys in math in school by most measures. For example, in high school, girls’ average performance and participation in math and science has improved over time and, in some cases, has surpassed that of boys.

The graph above shows the average number of high school credits earned in math and science combined, by gender, between 1990 and 2005 (the most recent year for which data were available). Girls are in green and boys are in purple. Over time all students, both boys and girls, are taking more math and science credits - both lines are going up - and girls now earn more credits in math and science than boys do.

Unconscious Bias: Schemas

Schemas are non-conscious hypotheses. They are expectations or stereotypes that influence our judgments of others (regardless of our own group). For example, with regard to gender, we’re not just talking about men judging women; we’re also talking about women judging women. Men and women both downplay the contributions of women. With regard to race/ethnicity, we’re not just talking about whites judging minorities; we’re also talking about minorities judging minorities. Whites and minorities both downplay the contributions of minorities.Unconscious bias is NOT discrimination. 

Here’s an example of a schema from Wikipedia: A well-dressed businessman draws a knife on a vagrant. Onlookers may (and often do) "remember" the vagrant pulling the knife.

Say Cheese

Today's guest blogger is Nicholas McConnell. Nicholas is the Beatrice Watson Parrent Fellow at the Institute for Astronomy (University of Hawai'i). His research focuses on supermassive black holes and giant elliptical galaxies. 

A couple of years ago, in the midst of applying for postdoc jobs, I scanned a particular department's directory page for people who shared my research interests. As I scrolled through the names and photographs, two things quickly became apparent: there were very few women, and almost all the men looked somber or dour. Unfortunately, this department was hardly alone in exhibiting a gender imbalance among its researchers. The male mugshots left a stronger impression: "This does not seem like an enjoyable place to work."

The presence or absence of a smile often serves as a basic reading of a person's emotions or demeanor. However, psychology experiments have long shown that only a fraction of smiles are genuine "Duchenne" smiles: involuntary muscle actions at the eyes as well as the mouth. The rest are voluntary situational devices, used to ease tension, convey compliance, or appear attractive. In contrast, refusing to smile can telegraph high status, and in men even correlates with testosterone levels [1]. Many women have described facing social or professional pressure to present a smiling face, which is insidious when it reflects a double standard for people with equal status [2]. In a review of numerous studies, Yale professor Marianne LaFrance and collaborators found that women smile more often than men on average, and in tense or embarrassing situations. The gender difference is enhanced when individuals know they are being observed, suggesting that communal gender norms do influence facial expressions. However, it diminishes for individuals with the same power level, or in the same professional or social role [3].

Guest Post: Men, Women and Self-Promotion in Astronomy

This is a cross-post from Rob Simpson's blog Orbiting Frog.

We’re running the fifth .Astronomy conference later this year in Boston. .Astronomy is a small (and awesome) conference for astronomers, where you must apply to participate. Although the tone is relaxed, spaces at the event are in short supply (there are only 50 places). You don’t have to talk at .Astronomy, and there are only a few speaking slots, but it’s a pretty friendly crowd and you can talk about a wide variety of things. So why did only 2 women submit an abstract (out of 27 female applicants) versus 30 men (out of 65)?

We would like to create a broad group of speakers but it’s hard to select talks that don’t exist. Did we inadvertently create a bias toward male speakers by soliciting abstracts on the sign-up form? If so, that’s a worry because it’s how a lot of conferences do this.

When Money Can’t Talk

In one of my earlier posts, I wondered whether or not K-12 STEM programs are truly effective at helping to plug the leaky pipeline in the United States.  In that post, I referred to the study that found that countries that make economic commitments to science and science education report higher percentages of women in STEM careers. In this current period of continuing resolutions and a sequestration that are dominating the distribution of federal dollars and threatening to cut NSF and NASA (and other) programs, I wonder if an already bad situation in the Uniter States will only get worse.  Specifically, will young scientists in general, and perhaps even women in particular, be disproportionately affected by decreasing numbers of research grants and dwindling STEM education opportunities?

Men and Women, Like Totally, Talk Differently?

About a year ago, while preparing to go on the post-doc job talk circuit, I was practicing in front of my research group at Berkeley.  A post-doc pulled me aside after my talk and pointed out to me that I have a particular vocal tic.  A tic, she said, that tends to be more prevelant in young women called "uptalk."

Uptalk (or high rising terminal) is the use of a rising, questioning intonation even when making a statement. The primary sociological controversy surrounding uptalk concerns the fact that women use uptalk more often than men do, which some interpret as a signal of uncertainty and subordination (Lakoff 1975).

Feminine Role Models

This week's guest blogger is Kate Follette. Kate is a graduate student at Steward Observatory and an adjunct instructor at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona. Her scientific research focuses on planet formation in circumstellar disks, and she is also engaged in educational research on mitigating quantitative illiteracy through introductory science courses for non-majors. 

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who was dismayed when I read the headline “My Fair Physicist? Feminine Math and Science Role Models Demotivate Young Girls”.

The article, which was posted to the WIA blog on April 16th and is linked here, was published in Social, Psychological and Personality Science. Its abstract reads:

Women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are labeled unfeminine, a costly social label that may discourage female students from pursuing these fields. Challenges to this stereotype include feminine STEM role models, but their counterstereotypic-yet-feminine success may actually be demotivating, particularly to young girls.

• Study 1 showed that feminine STEM role models reduced middle school girls’ current math interest, self-rated ability, and success expectations relative to gender-neutral STEM role models and depressed future plans to study math among STEM-disidentified girls. These results did not extend to feminine role models displaying general (not STEM-specific) school success, indicating that feminine cues were not driving negative outcomes. 

• Study 2 suggested that feminine STEM role models’ combination of femininity and success seemed particularly unattainable to STEM-disidentified girls.
The results call for a better understanding of feminine STEM figures aimed at motivating young girls.

After reading the study myself, the bitter aftertaste of its primary conclusion - that “feminine” STEM role models demotivate girls who are STEM-disinclined - stuck with me for several months. I kept coming back to it and thinking “this CAN’T be true, can it??”

I do a fair amount of outreach with middle-school aged girls, and I’d like to consider myself a “feminine” STEM role model.  I don’t want to believe that my femininity is “demotivating”. Of course, just because I don’t want to believe it doesn’t mean that it’s not true.

The root of my personal discontent is that as a STEM role model, the message I received was that I should choose to be either discipline-independently feminine OR gender-neutral if I want to motivate young girls (or avoid demotivating them). I loathe this idea, because to consciously cultivate a “gender-neutral” appearance/demeanor or avoid specific mention of STEM success means not practicing what I preach. I want to be myself when I work with girls, and encourage them to do the same.

So before accepting their conclusion at face value, I suggest that we approach this paper with the same rigor afforded any other published scientific paper. Let’s  examine the data and experimental method and decide for ourselves whether the conclusion is warranted.  Here’s what I found when I did so:

1) Just 144 and 42 girls’ data were analyzed to draw conclusions for Studies 1 and 2 respectively.

2) Although statistics on the race distribution and grade level of participants are provided, no other demographic information is given. A few simple and potentially revealing questions might include how many/what type of schools were included, geographic (urban vs. rural) information, socioeconomic status, etc.

3) The crux of Study 1 was three interviews with university students, which the girls read and answered questions about. The setup is described as follows: “Participants then read magazine-type interviews with three female university students displaying feminine (e.g., wearing pink clothes and makeup, likes reading fashion magazines) or gender-neutral appearance and characteristics (e.g., wearing dark-colored clothes and glasses, likes reading).” Is this the definition of femininity?  Feminine women don’t read books or wear black?  This strikes me as almost comically narrow.

4) Since the students were only reacting to a small number of role model interviews (n=3) and rating them in general categories such as “positivity” and “perceived similarity”, it seems to me that conducting interviews with participants regarding WHY they chose certain rankings would be advisable. This could serve to reassure the reader that the girls are basing their rankings on the characteristics that the study designers claim – femininity and STEM success. In the educational literature this is called establishing “content validity” and involves answering the question “does your instrument measure what you think it does?” I’m not a social scientist, but I imagine that such a thing is (or should be) standard practice.

5) The second study used a similar set of interviews but asked two more direct questions
a. “How likely do you think it is that you could be both as successful in math/science AND as feminine or girly as these students by the end of high school”
b. “Do being good at math and being girly go together?”
The effect here was the same, but more marginal than in the first study (see Figure 3 of the paper) and had fewer participants (n=42), a less-standard setup (some girls participated in a classroom and some at a county fair) and a procedural error through which an (unspecified) number of girls didn’t receive item 2.

While this study is an interesting and thought-provoking result worthy of further investigation, I would have liked to see more of an effort on the part of the authors to emphasize the small and preliminary nature of the study.  Scientists of all persuasions need to be careful about how their work will be interpreted by non-experts, and this study reaches some particularly dangerous and counterproductive conclusions to be throwing around before they are fully supported by evidence. It is NOT the final word on the advantageousness of feminine STEM role models.

Meeting with Extremely High Percentage of Women Speakers!

As you've probably seen from previous posts and mailings, the CSWA (with input from all of you) has been keeping track of the percentage of conference invited speakers who are women (see http://www.aas.org/cswa/percent.html).

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting Jorge Moreno, who is organizing a conference on "Interacting Galaxies and Binary Quasars: A Cosmic Rendezvous" (see announcement below). I wanted to highlight here that 76% of the invited speakers for this conference are women (13 women and 4 men).

Jorge explained to me that he is delighted to see so many female astronomers in the list, as well as a few speakers from developing countries. He worries that we are still a long way from gender equality in science, especially in places like his country of origin (Mexico), but he is glad to know that many people are taking steps in the right direction. He feels very lucky to be in this position. He also mentions that he wants to make sure nobody can tell his daughter Camila that she can't pursue a career in science (or in any field she desires).

---------------- Conference Announcement from Jorge--------------------------------------

Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the SOC & LOC, I am glad to announce the workshop "Interacting Galaxies and Binary Quasars: A Cosmic Rendezvous", organized jointly by SISSA and ICTP, in Trieste (Italy). The dates are April 2-5, 2012 and the venue is the Kastler Lecture Hall, on the ICTP campus, next to the sea and a few steps from the Miramare Castle. Registration is now open with December 10, 2011 as the deadline. Please note than in order to keep this event intimate, the meeting will only 40-45 participants in total. Therefore, early registration is desirable. Applications from women, minorities and people from developing countries is particularly encouraged. For more details, please visit the conference website:

http://www.sissa.it/ap/igbq2012/igbq2012/Home.html

TITLE:
Interacting Galaxies and Binary Quasars: A Cosmic Rendezvous.

RATIONALE:
Interacting galaxies are among the most spectacular events in the cosmos. They affect morphology and may funnel gas into the central regions, thereby triggering star formation and nuclear activity. Likewise, the discovery of binary quasars has accelerated to unprecedented levels in the last few years. The aim of this workshop is to bring together observers and theorists working on either interacting galaxies or binary quasars. By discussing these phenomena from diverse points of view, several interesting science questions will addressed.

VENUE & DATES:
Trieste, Italy
April 2-5, 2012

REGISTRATION DEADLINE:
December 10, 2011.

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:
Monica Colpi, Francoise Combes, Deborah Dultzin, Tiziana Di Matteo,
Sara Ellison, George Djorgovski, Julie Comerford, Kelly Holley-Bockelmann,
Phil Hopkins, Lisa Kewley, Stefanie Komossa, Jennifer Lotz, Lucio Mayer,
Adam Myers, Patricia Tissera, Marta Volonteri & Qingjuan Yu.

Please forward this announcement to your colleagues and anyone else potentially interested. Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions (jmoreno@sissa.it)

Best regards,
Jorge Moreno

Note: This meeting is paid entirely by a SISSA Young Research Scientist Grant.

--
SOC: I. Aretxaga, V. Avila-Reese, A. Benson, J. Bullock, J. Cohn, M. Geller, Y. Krongold & J. Moreno.
LOC: G. de Lucia, A. Lapi, J. Moreno, P. Salucci & R. Sheth.
--

Michael Gurian: Leadership and the Sexes

I recently attended a talk by Michael Gurian, who was promoting his new book, Leadership and the Sexes: Using Gender Science to Create Success in Business. With a title like that, I couldn't help but be intrigued, but also skeptical.

The focus of his talk was not specifically the retention of women in STEM professions, although he did mention that as a problem he hoped to solve by pointing out gender differences. His point was that there are, indeed, biological differences between men and women, in brain activity and development in particular. While those differences don't translate to differences in intelligence, the way we communicate and learn is different. He showed us MRI scans of brains, demonstrating a distinct difference between men's and women's brains to emphasize his point.

Women's brains have more white matter, while men's have more grey matter. This means that women have more connections between different areas of the brains. Thus, men are good at being very single-mindedly focused on one task at a time, while women are very good at communicating, responding to facial cues, and making connections. When at rest, men's brains show much less activity on brain scans then women's. Science is very much a male-brain profession, Gurian argues, so some specfic ways for encouraging women in STEM include:

• Discard the Ivory Tower paradigm for STEM. The truth is that science has become a more communal effort and that collaboration and communication are vital.
  
• Increase mentoring.
  
• Deal proactively with gender differences. For instance, women tend to go into meetings looking for community and reciprocity, men go in looking to express dominance.
  

I didn't necessarily agree with everything Gurian said. Some of the behaviors he described as being male-specific are ones that I see in myself: being fidgety when bored, for instance. He put up some cartoons in an attempt to encourage us to have a "sense of humor" about these issues: for example, one depicting the amount of time and money a man versus a woman spend at the mall buying a pair of jeans. I didn't laugh. Cartoons like that only serve to reinforce stereotypes. He also cited a study showing that infant boys prefer to stare at mobiles while infant girls prefer faces, which might have been an interesting point if I hadn't recently read a thorough debunking of the study at the Sociological Images blog.

Still, I think that those of us interested in promoting women in science do need to consider that women and men are different, whether because of nature or nurture, and that those differences must be acknowledged in order to level the playing field. This is analogous to the failure of "color-blind" approaches to combating racism. Pretending that we are all the same, or rather that we are all just like white men, ignores the real problems faced in creating true diversity.

All in all, I found Michael Gurian's talk intriguing, and made me curious to read his book, but not curious enough to actually buy it. If any of you have read it, please comment below!

Daring to Discuss

Someday I would like to talk about the gender dynamics I see playing out in my own department. But that is never going to happen, because it would get me in trouble and I like having a career in astronomy. Chalk it up to the troubles of blogging under my real name.

Instead, I'm finding myself forced to discuss this NY Times op-ed by John Tierney, which I had tried to avoid reading, knowing it would just make me angry, until a friend of mine forwarded me the link and I finally succumbed. Other bloggers have already covered this pretty well, saving me the trouble, so I recommend reading their thoughts on the article.

One thing I would like to address is FemaleScienceProfessor's comment:

On one point I reluctantly sort of agree with him: i.e., workshops to "enhance gender equality", mandated if certain legislation becomes law, could be kind of grim. In all likelihood, these would be yet another sounds-good-in-theory administrative requirement that PIs and others would have to sit through to be allowed to run our research groups.

While I do understand this fear, how else are we going to convince the scientific establishment, many of whom likely share Tierney's views, that gender bias is real and actually does keep women from succeeding in science careers? Clearly, just waiting for the old guard to pass on isn't working, because I've met plenty of young male scientists who are just as biased as the old ones: they just hide it better. A lot of them hide it so well that they aren't even aware that they are biased, and these are exactly the people that the workshops would need to get to.

Granted, there are right ways and wrong ways to run such workshops, and I'm not clear yet on which way things would go. On the other hand, the NSF's ADVANCE program has produced a lot of terrific resources and toolkits for increasing the participation of women in science, so it's not like they'd be starting from scratch. I remain cautiously optimistic.