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Asia-Pacific Forum
on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 14, Issue 1, Article1 (Jun., 2013) |
Most of the women told about an interest in S&T early in life. Some of the women had chosen a technical career for practical reasons, without feeling an interest in S&T early in life. This study shows results only for the group of women who told about an interest early in life.
The results show the very great importance of a childhood and adolescence with a lot of technical stuff and a permitting attitude to test these for stimulating interests in the S&T-field. The women told that especially the fathers, but also other male relatives, have introduced them into a male technical world. Later on teachers have supported them in mathematics, science and technology. Different types of separate occasions, e.g. meetings with female engineers, had in some cases big influences and changed the future career for these women.
Professions of the fathers and mothers
Almost all women agreed to discuss the professions of their fathers and mothers. A very similar picture emerged concerning the professions of their fathers. All fathers except a very few were educated engineers or had jobs where skills in technology were necessary. Diversity was much greater concerning professions of the mothers. The majority worked as teachers and within health- or childcare, a few were shop managers and one mother had been a high-ranking manager at a hospital.
Support from family and relatives
Support for introducing S&T early in the women's life came from different persons. Support came from fathers, male relatives and mothers, but scarcely from female relatives.
Without any doubt support from fathers were the most striking answer, when the women described which persons had made them interested in the S&T-field during childhood. Most of the women reported how their fathers had encouraged them to test different technical stuff at home. The atmosphere was allowable and it was permitted to test through 'trial and error'. The fathers were often very enthusiastic and cheered on their daughters. One woman told:
Daddy was an engineer, he built and fixed up and fiddled about with everything, so this was my growth, it just was there ……………….yes, sure, this was the situation the whole time, so if you wanted to do anything, yes, but there is the stuff, just start and fix it up! So there was a permitting attitude.
There are also stories where women described their fascination about more specific technical processes they participated in. It could be stories about a television or radio to be repaired or to look into the machinery of a car.
Daddy picked out or replaced something in his Volvo so we took apart, I felt this was very interesting to learn about the different parts, as this is a piston or cam shift and everything, and I know I read some of my Daddy's books about engines and learned about two-stroke engines, four-stroke engines and everything about these things.
Both fathers and mothers have encouraged their daughters for further studies, but not necessarily in S&T, and told them how important school work is. However, the role of the participants' mothers was different from that of the fathers. Together with their mothers the girls participated in more traditionally female activities, such as baking, cooking and sewing. There are only a few stories about mothers doing traditionally male activities. One mother joined the father doing carpentry on the house and easily handled the drilling machine. Another mother attended a computer course together with her own brother and built a computer. The mothers' influences on introducing their daughters into the S&T-field have thus been much lower than the fathers', at least concerning the practice of traditional technical work.
Male relatives influenced the women more than the mothers and often in the same way as the fathers. Male relatives are here defined as paternal and maternal grandfathers, uncles, brothers, brother-in-laws and cousins. Older male relatives introduced the girls into traditionally male activities in much the same way as their fathers did, while younger male relatives were playmates and often introduced the girls to traditional boy games. One of the women told about her father's uncle, who was an engineer in Stockholm, and the only educated person in the family. When he visited the family he was regarded as a king. These memories are from the woman's age of eleven or twelve. "……… yes, a king who just came and was just raised to something ………….. In that moment I knew I decided that engineer you ought to be". Some of the women told memories about when their paternal or maternal grandfathers introduced computers in their lives. Other grandfathers built bark boats and carried out other woodworking project with their grandchildren. In these cases grandfathers introduced the girls in the male technical world. Brothers, who themselves were technically interested and had made a technical career, supported their sisters in their choice of a technical profession. Some of the women told about their brothers, who had been very important in encouraging them to choose a technical career. Brothers and cousins were playmates in the sandpits and they all often played with toy cars.
Interestingly no women reported of other female relatives than their mothers, who introduced them into the S&T-field as girls. No women told about a sister or an aunt influencing them to a technical career. The picture that introduction into the traditionally male technology world is made by men, preferentially fathers but also by other male relatives, is quite clear.
Some of the women reported that they played a lot with boys as young girls. Play activities included outdoors games, climbing in trees and playing war. The children could also "sit on an electrical cabinet playing that they drove a helicopter over the savannas of Africa". Indoors they played with lego or racecourses. However, no one reports of more traditionally girl plays when girls and boys played together. "We never played with dolls". When they got older, the women participated in sport activities together with their male friends, activities such as snowboarding, football, ice hockey and bandy, the last a ball sport practiced on ice with skates in the northern countries.
The women attended science classes in upper secondary school often together with a majority of boys. Their description is that they got on well with boys and men as playmates and fellow-students. Often they understood the rules in men's world better than these of the females'. "I have not yet learnt the rules of females …………. The boys I easily understood, I knew what was going on there. These rules I knew". This woman told an example of boys' rules:
Yes, you were not allowed to be better than the boys. You were not allowed to! Had you done a tackling or a nice feint then you were punished afterwards ………… Girls should stay on a given level. So I learnt this!
If you understood boys' rules you could be assimilated in the group. Another woman told the following story. In school there was a special room for computers. There was one predetermined time for boys and another for girls. At one occasion the time was over for the girls and some boys urged the girls to leave. "Me too" asked the woman who told this story. "No", was the answer, "you are not counted as a girl". It was obvious that the boys considered her as not belonging to the girls' group. "I was either boy or girl. I just was!" The woman described what would happen if she had been with the girls instead: "There was a lot of drivel, fuss and silly behaviour. It was much more fun to be with the boys as you then could sport and do other things like that". Other women also describe the boys' world as "more to the point", compared to the girls' where "things could go round between ten persons".
The interviews show that these women, who have grown up with boys, in many cases early learnt male game rules both in plays and sports. These women have acquired knowledge they later used in male settings and have felt quite comfortable in this. However, there have also appeared thoughts that it is not only an advantage to be with boys as young, it could also be a benefit to know female game rules.
A number of women reported that their teachers engaged in and talked to them about studying science and/or technology when they were pupils at junior high school and upper secondary school. The women remembered their teachers being very competent and interested in their pupils and their engagement has influenced, and in some cases changed, the direction of the women's careers. One woman told us that she and her class-fellows received 'computer license' from their teacher at an age of eight which stimulated their computer interest.
Study advisors also had influence on the women's career choices. One woman told:
My study advisor forced me to meet her. At first I thought I would follow the main stream to the social science program in upper secondary school. However, nature science is better, deeper, and broader and gives bigger opportunities and it was actually these subjects which interested me most.
Also separate occasions had big importance for some women. They told that they met female students who studied to computer and mechanical engineers, respectively. Those meetings made so deep impressions on these women that the meetings changed their future careers.
Some women participated in summer courses given only for girls. The role of these courses was to engage girls in S&T and was arranged in such a way that girls had a lot of practical experiences. One course included to build playhouses located in city parks. A male carpenter supervised a group of ten to fourteen girls. Another course was for junior high school girls to format computers and to do other related work tasks. Educational visits at the university when the girls were pupils at upper secondary school were important for several of the women. They later became students in those subjects the study visits had dealt with.
Interests in mathematics and logical thinking
A majority of participating women were very interested in mathematics, often as young children. They have been clever in mathematics and have had high school marks. For many of them mathematics have been the best and most funny subject. When they describe why mathematic has such a pedestal standing they use descriptions like: "Mathematics is logic so right is right and wrong is wrong. It is nothing more with that. It feels comfortable to get one answer". Another description was that "A mathematical formula can be used in different ways for solving problems. It is like a key for IKEA-furniture, you have a tool which you can do so much with!" Further description of the big interest for mathematics is that "the very calculation is exciting and it is thrilling to see if your answer is right after a long arithmetical operation". The women noted out that their capacity for mathematical, logical thinking and analyses were closely connected. Mathematics seems to be a gateway to studies in the S&T-field. One woman in the study thought of starting postgraduate studies in mathematics.
Interests in physics, chemistry and biology
Several of the women clearly established that they wanted to study natural sciences instead of social sciences in the upper secondary school. The subjects were regarded as better, deeper, broader and would give bigger opportunities. Some women tried to explain why nature science experienced more attractive than social science and the humanities. "And I remember when I was at intermediate state in school, we had history and religion, and I did not know which was true and which was untrue ……….. for me everything was a fairytale". Another woman told:
I got answers to the why-questions from natural science. In the humanities, there it was not allowed to ask why, there you should presume and accept things. I am not directly that sort of person. Do I want to know I would like to know exactly how it is.
The overwhelming positive terms for mathematics were not expressed for the three natural science subjects. However, the participants' interests in physics and biology were greater than that in chemistry.
There were various answers when the women were first interested in technology at school. It is important to keep in mind that technology was first introduced as a school subject in Sweden in 1994. Then, and now, the subject has a low status and teachers complain of small resources for teaching. The answers about the women's interest in technology thus depend on when the women attended school and if the schools then had started to have technology in their curricula. A common answer in the interviews was that computers in school were a gateway for further technology interest. Also woodwork could be a gateway. On the question what was special with technology the answer could be: "I would like to know how things work and that could be the television, a computer or anything". Another answer was: "to be able to do a bit of thinking and to do something yourself".
