Chilean Women in STEM: Social Movements and Institutional Transformations in Higher Education

• In Event: Gender Equity in STEM Higher Education: Studies of Chile, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States

Abstract

The underrepresentation of women in STEM undergraduate programs is a significant issue in Chilean higher education. While those who wish to increase women in STEM often defer to national or institutional level policies in many higher education systems, Chilean higher education provides a case where the agenda-setting and changes in policies and practices to attract and retain more women in STEM are ignited by social and intellectual movements of students and faculty.

This paper presents the most significant movements and their implications for STEM fields in higher education in Chile. These movements have been pushing the issues of increasing women’s representation and voice via admission, curriculum, university environment, and in faculty and leadership positions in STEM. We show how institutions respond to those movements, transforming policy, practice, and institutional culture to increase the representation of women in STEM majors. We describe the case of the Faculty of Physical Sciences and Mathematics at Universidad de Chile, which launched affirmative action for undergraduate admission, scholarships to study abroad, hiring of diverse faculty and staff, units that focus on gender and diversity, and name changes of facilities, among others. After that, we discuss the impact of these movements and institutional changes in Chilean STEM undergraduate education using the national enrollment data from 2007 to 2019.

At the national level, women’s participation in STEM is still and has been steadily low as women make up just above 20% of STEM enrollment, despite the drastic increase in women’s access to higher education and academic achievements that surpass men. Yet, somehow, the mobilization of women on university campuses, and the greater public awareness about women's underrepresentation in STEM fields, is not yet reflected in the national data. This might be due to the stratification of higher education institutions and STEM programs where top schools with more resources have capacities to implement affirmative action policy, develop engagement programs and practices, and build faculty capacity (e.g., more women faculty in general and/or in STEM) thereby implementing a systematic approach. Also, the students who apply, receive admission, and matriculate to STEM programs at top institutions might have different attributes, such as higher socioeconomic status and better academic preparation than students enrolled in other types of institutions or non-STEM majors.

We also found that there is great variability of women’s enrollment within STEM programs. Underrepresentation of women is severe in engineering and computing fields across all universities, despite the number of institutions that offer engineering and computing is nearly twice more than the universities offering science majors. The case of the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Science (FCFM) at the Universidad de Chile shows that within engineering, there are significant differences between subfields, with low percentages of women in math and electrical engineering. While these are the key areas for Chile’s economic sustainability and technological progress, not recognizing the nuanced placement of women across sub-STEM majors would have ramifications for women’s career and life opportunities as well as for the diversity and innovation of Chilean society through science and technology.

Author

• Jeongeun Kim, University of Maryland