Tracing the Source of Gender Disparities in STEM: Children’s Macro- and Micro-level Sociocultural Contexts

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Messages that convey negative views of women in STEM contribute to the entrenched underrepresentation of women in these fields. What are the sources of these messages in children’s sociocultural contexts? A comprehensive description of these sources must span levels of analysis from the macro-level (e.g., cultural beliefs and stereotypes) to the micro-level (e.g., fleeting cues in social interactions). However, most research to date has focused on a single level of analysis (rather than integrating across multiple levels), limiting our understanding of the role of children’s sociocultural contexts in the emergence and maintenance of gender gaps in STEM. This symposium is unique in bringing together evidence spanning the range from macro-level variables such as national indices of gender inequality to micro-level variables such as syntactic cues found in books for and conversations with children.
Paper 1 examined societal-level factors that predict children’s implicit gender stereotypes about math, including gender inequality and gaps in math performance. Paper 2 focused on parents and identified associations between parents’ and children’s gender-brilliance stereotypes and beliefs about whether brilliance is required for success in STEM. Papers 3 and 4 explored how subtle shifts in language can encourage girls’ participation in stereotypically masculine fields such as STEM. Specifically, Paper 3 showed that children felt more self-efficacious in science after reading storybooks about “doing science” than “being a scientist.” Lastly, Paper 4 found that contradicting gender stereotypes about interest in computer science can pique girls’ interest and promote their sense of belonging in this male-dominated field.

Sub Unit

• Social Cognition

Chairs

• Siqi Zhao, New York University

• Peipei Setoh, Nanyang Technological University

Individual Presentations

• Young Girls’ Implicit “Math = Male” Stereotypes Reflect Societal Disparities Favoring Males - Presenting Author: Dario Cvencek, University of Washington; Elizabeth A. Sanders, University of Washington; Maria Francisca Del Rio; Ružica Brečić, University of Zagreb; Carlo Tomasetto, University of Bologna; Manu Kapur, ETH Zurich; Andrew N Meltzoff, University of Washington

• The Intergenerational Transmission of Field-Specific Ability Beliefs and Gender-Brilliance Stereotypes - Presenting Author: Siqi Zhao, New York University; Andrei Cimpian, New York University; Peipei Setoh, Nanyang Technological University

• How Linguistic and Visual Cues Presented in a Science Storybook Impact Children’s Science Outcomes - Presenting Author: Sona Kumar, Boston University; Cerelia Liu; Kathleen H. Corriveau, Boston University

• Countering Gender Stereotypes to Increase Adolescent Girls’ Interest in Enrolling in Computer Science Courses - Presenting Author: Jennifer Thompson, University of Houston; Taylor Mikhail Alexander, University of Houston; Weihua Fan; Allison Master, University of Houston