Life-Experiences of Female Students in Physics: The Outsiders Within

Lucy Avraamidou,Dagmar Heeg

doi:10.29333/ejmste/10991

Abstract

The purpose of this multiple case study was to examine the kinds of experiences that were critical to the physics trajectories of four purposefully selected undergraduate female physics students in central Europe. The data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews and were analyzed following an inductive approach and a combination of open and in-vivo coding. The findings showed that: (a) all participants experienced a lack of sense of belonging in physics because of stereotypes and biases about the role of women in physics, which were evident both in classroom discourses and lack of recognition by their instructors and their male peers; (b) the intersection of gender and physics identity served as a barrier to the participants’ perceived recognition (by others) as competent physics persons as well as their sense of belonging in physics; and, (c) all participants pointed to the lack of role-models and specifically women of color in academia.

Highlights

With currently 37,3% of the students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) being female, the underrepresentation of women within STEM fields is still a current problem (European Commission, 2015)
The findings showed that: (a) all participants experienced a lack of sense of belonging in physics because of stereotypes and biases about the role of women in physics, which were evident both in classroom discourses and lack of recognition by their instructors and their male peers; (b) the intersection of gender and physics identity served as a barrier to the participants’ perceived recognition as competent physics persons as well as their sense of belonging in physics; and, (c) all participants pointed to the lack of role-models and women of color in academia
The study addresses the issue of women’s underrepresentation in physics through an examination of four purposefully selected undergraduate female students’ life experiences that were critical to their physics trajectories

Summary

Introduction

With currently 37,3% of the students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) being female, the underrepresentation of women within STEM fields is still a current problem (European Commission, 2015). The Netherlands, which serves as the context of this study takes one of the bottom positions of the EU in terms of women in science research, with only 22,6 percent being female (Miller, Eagly, & Linn, 2014). This underrepresentation does contribute to the general shortage of scientists in Europe (EC, 2015), but it influences performance at the workplace. Stronger recruiting manners, and mentor systems, attempts have been made to improve the participation of women in STEM (Blackburn, 2017) Despite these efforts, the gender gap in science still exists at a global level. Physics serves as the context of this study

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