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Outperforming yet undervalued: Undergraduate women in STEM
In spite of efforts to increase gender diversity across many science fields, women continue to encounter beliefs that they lack ability and talent. Undergraduate education is a critical time when peer influence may alter choice of majors and careers for women interested in science. Even in life scie...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7316242/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32584838 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234685 |
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author | Bloodhart, Brittany Balgopal, Meena M. Casper, Anne Marie A. Sample McMeeking, Laura B. Fischer, Emily V. |
author_facet | Bloodhart, Brittany Balgopal, Meena M. Casper, Anne Marie A. Sample McMeeking, Laura B. Fischer, Emily V. |
author_sort | Bloodhart, Brittany |
collection | PubMed |
description | In spite of efforts to increase gender diversity across many science fields, women continue to encounter beliefs that they lack ability and talent. Undergraduate education is a critical time when peer influence may alter choice of majors and careers for women interested in science. Even in life science courses, in which women outnumber men, gender biases that emerge in peer-to-peer interactions during coursework may detract from women’s interest and progress. This is the first study of which we are aware to document that women are outperforming men in both physical and life science undergraduate courses at the same institution, while simultaneously continuing to be perceived as less-able students. This is problematic because undergraduate women may not be able to escape gender-ability stereotypes even when they are outperforming men, which has important implications for 1) the recognition of women’s achievements among their peers in undergraduate education and 2) retention of women in STEM disciplines and careers. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7316242 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-73162422020-06-29 Outperforming yet undervalued: Undergraduate women in STEM Bloodhart, Brittany Balgopal, Meena M. Casper, Anne Marie A. Sample McMeeking, Laura B. Fischer, Emily V. PLoS One Research Article In spite of efforts to increase gender diversity across many science fields, women continue to encounter beliefs that they lack ability and talent. Undergraduate education is a critical time when peer influence may alter choice of majors and careers for women interested in science. Even in life science courses, in which women outnumber men, gender biases that emerge in peer-to-peer interactions during coursework may detract from women’s interest and progress. This is the first study of which we are aware to document that women are outperforming men in both physical and life science undergraduate courses at the same institution, while simultaneously continuing to be perceived as less-able students. This is problematic because undergraduate women may not be able to escape gender-ability stereotypes even when they are outperforming men, which has important implications for 1) the recognition of women’s achievements among their peers in undergraduate education and 2) retention of women in STEM disciplines and careers. Public Library of Science 2020-06-25 /pmc/articles/PMC7316242/ /pubmed/32584838 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234685 Text en © 2020 Bloodhart et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Bloodhart, Brittany Balgopal, Meena M. Casper, Anne Marie A. Sample McMeeking, Laura B. Fischer, Emily V. Outperforming yet undervalued: Undergraduate women in STEM |
title | Outperforming yet undervalued: Undergraduate women in STEM |
title_full | Outperforming yet undervalued: Undergraduate women in STEM |
title_fullStr | Outperforming yet undervalued: Undergraduate women in STEM |
title_full_unstemmed | Outperforming yet undervalued: Undergraduate women in STEM |
title_short | Outperforming yet undervalued: Undergraduate women in STEM |
title_sort | outperforming yet undervalued: undergraduate women in stem |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7316242/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32584838 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234685 |
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