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More Compulsory Math Lessons Do Not Encourage Women To Pursue STEM Careers, Study Finds (phys.org)
An anonymous reader shares a report: The demand for employees in STEM careers (science, technology, engineering and math) is particularly high, as corporations compete to attract skilled professionals in the international market. What is known as "curriculum intensification" is often used around the world to attract more university entrants -- and particularly more women -- to these subjects; that is to say, students have on average more mandatory math courses at a higher level. Scientists from the LEAD Graduate School and Research Network at the University of Tubingen have now studied whether more advanced math lessons at high schools actually encourages women to pursue STEM careers. Their work shows that an increase in advanced math courses during two years before the final school-leaving exams does not automatically create the desired effects. On the contrary: one upper secondary school reform in Germany, where all high school students have to take higher level math courses, has only increased the gender differences regarding their interests in activities related to the STEM fields. The young female students' belief in their own math abilities was lower after the reform than before. The results have now been published in the Journal of Educational Psychology.
So, if you force people who are not good at math to do more of it, they will eventually figure out that they are not good at it and avoid it? Well, lets just do other things to force them into a field that they will not be good in. Anything but admit that there might actually be valid differences in the sexes.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The misogynerd narrative! Push it! I need more misogynerd narrative! Tell me why sexual harassment is the only reason! Tell me why I'm a rapist who merely hasn't been caught in the act yet!
Wall Street must be absolutely free of sexual harassment! Nobody ever gets sexually harassed on Wall Street! Otherwise we'd hear about how sexist Wall Street is and how there's a huge push to get more womyn-born-womyn investment bankers!
Build it up! Build it up! Build it up!
When abortion becomes illegal, this will be instrumental in the retribution feminism is planning.
Women were demoralized
People who get demoralized by math, probably shouldn't pursue a career in a STEM field. The earlier you can sort out who's interested and who's not, the better. That applies to both men and women equally, by the way.
I guess if we can't convince women to go into the roles that some SJW wants we'll just have to force them. For the greater good of course. This is already being brought up as shown here: http://www.dailytelegraph.com....
If they broaden that scope a bit, they might note that STEM degrees are in decline overall. ( Unless you're in India )
Due, in no small part, to the current business practice of bringing in H1-B labor for pennies on the dollar. The reasoning being to cut wage costs for everyone who isn't at the executive pay scale. All the while playing the victim card of " We can't find qualified candidates locally " ( Translates to: We don't want to pay domestic market wages for this position )
In this work environment, it wouldn't matter if folks were given access to the most amazing math classes the world has to offer. The folks capable of taking those classes are all too aware of what awaits them in that career field, post education. Debt, with little chance of getting a decent paying job if they have to compete with the H1-B folks.
The smart ones simply choose not to play the game and find another career choice.
Regardless of gender.
Yep. On average women have bigger breasts than men. No way could there also be an average difference in the brain. That's unpossible! It's like people who think it's racist to point out there actually are statistical differences between races (primarily skin colour!)... stupidly wrong.
Instead of trying to open the doors for women who want to be in these areas, have the aptitude for them, and may tend to get extra resistance because they're in the minority, it seems there are people who are hell bent on proving women aren't just equal in the philosophical sense, but actually the same. Even then, I'd be OK if they'd just work more on honestly figuring out if and how much of the difference is nature and how much is nurture before insisting there's something wrong if 50% of any given job market is staffed by women.
> Kids in high school often don't really know what they want to do
For many that's true.
For the ones who are driven to become top level scientists and engineers (and writers!), it is not. How many professional basketball players weren't really that interested in sports in high school?
I went to university with a now famous mathematician---he was doing research on string theory at age 17 with Ed Witten. Now, he's an outlier among outliers, but the point is true.
Can we just accept that different people like different things, and that maybe, just MAYBE, some of these might be related to gender?
I don't keep up on the news for other industries. Are there big pushes elsewhere to get more men into female-dominated professions?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
People who get demoralized by math, probably shouldn't pursue a career in a STEM field.
Ha!
Have you *seen* the maths syllabus in the US?
I like maths. My job often involves maths. Sometimes I do some recreationally (I'm trying to prove a particular quantity is transcandental). I have a friend where we occasionally meet for coffee and fill pages with mathematical scribble just for entertainment. I've also bumped into the US school-maths (it's an insult to call it maths) syllabus, when I did some tutoring for a friend's kid.
It wasn't just demoralizing. It nearly made me lose the will to live. It is that bad.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
So...wait...despite excessive incentivizing, women still don't flood into stem fields?
That's so weird, because if you listen to some of the loudest voices today, gender is a social construct with no underlying biology, therefore changing social conditions should result in a change of gendered behaviors.
Are we yet at the point where we can accept there are biological differences between the genders and skin colors which predispose them to certain fields, and thus stop playing the "DIVERSITY" game?
hahahhahaha
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
You're incapable of being a ballerina. Women are capable of becoming STEM professionals. This should be obvious, but to a lot of slashdotters, it seems like it is not.
Women most certainly can be just about anything they want to be. And should be if they are so inclined.
But time after time, we find out that they don't want to be what they don't want to be.
And blaming it on men is like looking for your car keys under a streetlamp because the light is good, when you know you lost the keys 50 yards away. People who "know" that males in STEM are violent sexist rapists of greater evil than any other field need to see what happens in the business world.
But as long as we demand gender balance in STEM, the only way we will achieve that is to remove any choice from women, and force them into STEM Otherwise, they are as interested in STEM as they are in hauling garbage.
I've worked with some darn good female engineers and scientists, and the common thread is they wanted to be doing that, and they knew they wanted to be that from a very young age. They also are united in believing the present female recruiting efforts are doomed. Interest in Stem is not something that you can take just anyone and tell them they are interested in it.
What do we do to appease the gender balance people when we finallly admit our failure?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.