Abstract
Explicit discussions of the underrepresentation of women in science can change the way that female students interpret their experiences and potential futures as scientists.
Highlights
Physics lags behind other science fields in undergraduate growth rates, as well as in representation of women and minorities
Our prior work set out to test some of these assertions and hypothesized solutions using a robust quantitative approach and the results showed that the discussion of the underrepresentation of women in physics had a positive effect on female students’ interest in pursuing a physical science career [6]
We have examined one teacher’s lesson in detail in order to examine the possible mechanisms by which a class discussion on the underrepresentation of women in physics may impact students’ figured worlds and subsequently their physics identity
Summary
Physics lags behind other science fields in undergraduate growth rates, as well as in representation of women and minorities. Most female students choose not to pursue a physics career before ever beginning college. In order to attract more women into the field, it is pertinent that we expand our research on formative experiences for female students during the high school years. To this end, the current paper focuses on understanding how a particular experience previously found to have a positive effect on persistence in a quantitative study, namely, the discussion of underrepresentation [5,6], has been implemented in the classroom and why it may have the effect previously observed.
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