Steller Science Girls: Nurturing Middle School Girls to Become Scientists

I have been asking the following question for several years: How can I change my ways of teaching science so that I would better represent the needs, knowledge, efforts, voice, and dreams of all my students?

Here are some data points I have collected as I continue to research this topic:

• —Girls and women are still being steered away from STEM pursuits. In K-12, boys tend to be more confident about their math and science abilities than girls (Libarkin and Kurdziel, 2003).
• At an early age girls are more likely to develop negative attitudes toward science, resulting in self-doubt in their abilities (Steinke 1999).
• —Girls often internalize disabling stereotypes, including the belief that computers, technology, and science are masculine and that there is a biological explanation for boys performing better in science, math, and technology (Gatta and Trigg, 2001).
• —In traditional K-12 science and math classroom environments, girls exhibit less self-confidence and are less assertive than boys (AAUW 1992, Fenema 2000).
• Girls often experience and see science as a solitary endeavor laced with competition. They view success in science as available only to the smartest, not as accessible to everyone. Success in science can be viewed negatively among adolescent girls, potentially decreasing their social status among boys and attracting unwanted labels such as nerd (Sadker and Sadker, 1994; AAUW, 1998).
• Research on student perceptions of science have shown that science is viewed as a discipline filled with isolation and competition,  without the personal, the creative, and the relevant (Lederman, 1992).
• Social, historical, cultural and political context is part of the classroom.The ways of knowing and doing science of those non-mainstream individuals must be validated and connections can be made.

I propose a New Framework for Science in the Classroom for both girls and boys and plan to share this in the next blog.