In education, engineering courses experience a huge gender gap and this could possibly be attributed to the findings of a recent education survey. The findings showed that girls do not elect to study engineering, as they are deemed as
‘boy subjects’ and they may appear ‘butch’ or ‘odd’ if they choose to study them.
As a result, females are choosing to study more stereotypical ‘girly’ subjects, such as dance or art. The survey found that girls are peer pressured into taking a subject they do not necessarily want to study, as they are afraid people will not accept their true choices.
Just 9 per cent of the engineering workforce is female. Furthermore, only 6 per cent of registered engineers and technicians are women. A recent study showed that the lack of girls studying science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses is the main reason behind the fact that women are not entering engineering.
However, putting subject choices aside, another issue which seems to put women off entering engineering is the health and safety in the workplace (HSE). Manual jobs naturally come with some risk and some can be dangerous.
Also, the high low ratio of women to men in the industry, and the known long hours has led to a perceived struggle to maintain a family life.
The study suggests that because many girls are pushing towards traditionally ‘feminine’ subjects, increasing the gender gap in engineering. This suggests that even though in the past women have pushed for equality; it could be argued some girls are making it worse.
In contrast, it could also be argued that there is a big gender gap within school subjects because of boys’ subject choice also. At school, boys like to impress their friends and they may do this by picking the more ‘manly’ subjects like PE or engineering. Some people may want to pick subjects like dance or art but fear of getting bullied by their friends. They may feel peer pressured into choosing subjects with their friends, rather than the ones they would most like to do.
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This issue has been with us for some time. I am old enough to remember the “WISE” , Women Into Science and Engineering, initiative. STEM and STEAM are nothing new and suffer the same fundamental problem and so will have the same outcome – very little impact on the issue.
What is that problem?
The problem is education is defined by subjects, subjects that are an artificial construct. So long as we define career paths in this way we will never solve the problem. For example STEM and STEAM are seen as subjects and not as a way of thinking. We need to encourage education evolve beyond the limitations of subjects and look at an approach based on problem solving.
So what is holding education back, keeping it focused on subjects?
Perhaps the simplest answer is not always the right one but I suggest it could be a case of tradition and the easiest way of measuring “standards”. I feel it is politicians are the ones responsible for the standards issue and the industry is responsible for the traditional approach. For as long as I have been a teacher (nearly 4 decades) education has been accused of not preparing people for the world of work, of not developing the skills and knowledge the world of work requires. Yet throughout his time it has been silent on the issue of subjects dominating education. Where have you been when education needed you? When Technology in schools branched out into designing, into problem solving I found it hard to find anyone to help fight our corner and support it in the curriculum. Yet technology develops all the skills we need to be successful and it is also gender equal.
As for picking subjects there is little option now in schools with the emphasis for accountability purposes on the EBacc. But once again we are falling into the subject trap!
Two articles that may help you see things a little different are:
Why must little boys be like little girls? http://wp.me/p2LphS-V
Why many boys only do just enough. http://wp.me/p2LphS-2J
As for the curriculum then we have “A new, gold-standard design and technology (D&T) GCSE” http://wp.me/p2LphS-qf
I could go on, and on, and on… !
I am happy to be challenged on any of this so please get in touch. It is about time we did something different.
Kevin Hewitson
Director of Advocating Creativity in Education