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Feminine Morality and Major Choice

Feminine Morality and Major Choice. Julia Thompson Purdue University. Overview. Introduction Thesis Moral Development Early Child experiences Gender, Culture and Choice Choosing a major Impacts. Where Are the Women In Engineering?. Why are women lacking in STEM? .

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Feminine Morality and Major Choice

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  1. Feminine Morality and Major Choice Julia Thompson Purdue University

  2. Overview • Introduction • Thesis • Moral Development • Early Child experiences • Gender, Culture and Choice • Choosing a major • Impacts

  3. Where Are the Women In Engineering?

  4. Why are women lacking in STEM? • Biological differences between men and women. • Girls’ lack of academic preparation for a science major/career. • Girls’ poor attitude toward science and lack of positive experiences with science in childhood. • The absence of female scientists/engineers as role models. • Science curricula are irrelevant to many girls. • The pedagogy of science classes favors male students. • A ‘chilly climate’ exists for girls/women in science classes. • Cultural pressure on girls/women to conform to traditional gender roles • An inherent masculine worldview in scientific epistemology. Blickenstaff (2005)

  5. Thesis Women tend to choose majors that align with feminine morality

  6. Kohlberg's stages of moral development

  7. Overall Gendered Morality (Gilligan 1982) • Feminine value patterns: • Caring • Interpersonal relationships • Cooperation • Masculine value patterns: • Reason • Success • Being right/ Competition • Note that historically male values are what characterize stages of Kohlberg Stages of Moral Development

  8. Early Childhood Experiences • View of Child-Mother relationship for the first 3 years (Chodrow 1974) • Female- extension of themselves • Male – opposite as themselves • Role of Play (Lever 1976) • Female • Simple, with an emphasis on personal achievement (i.e. jump rope) • Will make exceptions to rules to accommodate others. • Emotions will end the game • Male • Complex rules, with an an emphasis on competition (i.e. baseball) • Part of the game is debating the rules.

  9. Choice • Historically • Women had limited options (career, relationships, etc.) • Culturally • In different cultures decisions will be more or less individualistic

  10. Women in Engineering Gibbons (2009)

  11. Morality and Major • Top 5 Degrees for Women • Environmental (43.7%) • Biomedical (36.9%) • Chemical (35.0 %) • Biological and Agricultural (32.6%) • Industrial/ Manufacturing (30.2%) • Connected to feminine morality • Environmental/ Caring • People focused fields • Bottom 5 Degrees for Women • Computer Engineering (7.5%) • Computer Science -inside engineering- (10.5%) • Computer Science –outside engineering – (11.1.%) • Mechanical (11.4 %) • Electrical (11.5%) • Connected to Masculine morality • Emphasis on reason • Individualistic • Competitive • Less social emphasis

  12. Conclusion: Engineering Approach Towards Women Historically Modern Policy Pipeline Model Patching a leaking pipeline Prepare women to be more like men Student Responses: Leaving Multiple Identities Activist • Men only

  13. Conclusion: New Wave Engineering • A need to bring engineering in line with Feminine Morality • Partly inline with policy and industry goals (NAE 2004) • Shown to have higher interest/retention of women: • Sustainability in Engineering (Zimmerman & Vanegas, 2007) • Service Learning in Engineering (Barrington & Duffy, 2007) • Eco-Feminism in Engineering (Rao, Pawley, & Hoffmann, 2011)

  14. References Barrington, L., & Duffy, J. (2007). Attracting Underrepresented Groups to Engineering with Service-Learning Paper presented at the American Society for Engineering Education, Honolulu, Hi. Blickenstaff, J. C. (2005). Women and science careers: leaky pipeline or gender filter? Gender and Education, 17(4), 369-386. Chodorow, N. (1974). Family Structure and Feminine Personality. In M. Z. Rosaldo & L. amphere (Eds.), Women, Culture and Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Gibbons, M. T. (2009). Engineering by the Numbers: American Society for Engineering Education. Lever, J. (1976). Sex Differences in the Games Children Play. Social Problems, 23, 478-487. National Academy of Engineering. (2004). The Engineer of 2020 : Visions of Engineering in the New Century. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. National Science Foundation, N. (2011). Retrieved April 26, 2011 http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/ Rao, R., Pawley, A., & Hoffmann, S. (2011). Sustainability and the boundaries of Engineering Education: Lessons from eco-feminist theory. Paper presented at the Gender & STEM Research Symposium, West Lafayette, IN. Zimmerman, J. B., & Vanegas, J. (2007). Using Sustainability Education to Enable the Increase of Diversity in Science, Engineering and Technology-Related Discilines. International Journal of Engineering Education, 23(2), 242-253.

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