Gender equity in science classrooms: are teachers providing the necessary adjustments to meet the needs of female students?
Boys and girls often exhibit different approaches to learning and have different learning styles. This research project examines high school science teachers' knowledge of these differences and their willingness to incorporate a variety of strategies into their teaching to help ensure the educational success of their female students. A survey was developed and mailed to the state schools for the Deaf across the country and to public schools in the Rochester, New York area. The survey, directed towards science teachers in high schools, asked specific questions regarding the manner in which information was delivered in the classroom, while also asking how willing the teachers were to making changes in their instructional delivery in order to enhance the learning opportunities for their female students. Results of this survey indicated that many of the teachers were aware of strategies that help to facilitate female students participation and learning in the classroom. Most teachers, who were unaware of the strategies and their impact on facilitating participation and learning, could see that the strategies were valuable tools and would incorporate them in to their lessons in the future. These factors considered, one might be encouraged that with increased knowledge of learning style differences and incorporation of new instructional techniques, girls might find greater success and confidence in the science classroom which would carry over to educational and career choices in the science field.
Online reflections about tinkering in early childhood: a socio-cultural analysis
Science education research predominantly shows that students improve their scientific understandings when they tinker (or pull apart) tools and simple household machines. In this study, the qualitative data collected took the form of online journal entries by final year, female, primary teacher trainees, who reflected upon their early childhood experiences of ‘tinkering’. Data analysis, from a socio-cultural perspective, shows that many of these fledgling teachers of technology face similar issues found for young
Gender Differences in Predicting Productivity of Faculty
Since the 1960s, the overall proportion of female faculty in higher education has increased significantly, from 20 percent in 1969 to 27 percent in 1984, although this improvement is not reflected in all disciplines (Ransom, 1990). In journalism, the percentage of women faculty rose from 10 percent in 1969 to 30 percent in 1984.' Despite these gains, the recent literature demonstrates that female faculty must still face a number of inequity issues (Hensel, 1990; Maitland, 1990; Moore & Sagaria, 1991). In the journalism and mass communication field, several studies have pointed out that female faculty members are less likely to be tenured (Fedler, Counts, & Smith, 1984; Grunig, 1987) and earn less than their male counterparts, controlling for such intervening variables as rank, years of teaching experience, and educational level (Stuart & Dickey, 1986; Weaver & Wilhoit, 1988; see also Fedler et al., 1984; Kelly, 1989; Stuart & Dickey, 1991). One should add, though, that this salary differential tends to be small after controls. Provided that some job inequalities persist between male and female faculty in schools and departments of journalism and mass communications, the next question we need to address is why? Research on academic women in U.S. universities has suggested that such a differential treatment occurs because female faculty tend to publish less than their male colleagues ( e g , Centra, 1974; Chamberlain, 1988; Fulton, 1975; Seeborg, 1990; Simeone, 1987). Some discipline-specific studies have also reported that male faculty members are significantly more productive than their female counterparts in education (e.g., Lipman-Blumen, Stivers, Tickamyer, & Brainard, 1975) and psychology (e.g., Bronstein, Black, Pfennig, & White, 1986; Guyer & Fidell, 1973). But again these differences are often small or tend to disappear when such controls as rank and academic experience are introduced. In journalism and mass communications, however, there is some evidence that female faculty are closing the publication gap. A growing number of content analyses have revealed a continuous increase in female authorship since the 1960s (Cooper, Stewart, & Friedley, 1985, 1990; Dupagne, Potter, Cooper, & Dashiell, 1991; Sharp, Turk, Einsiedel, Schamber, & Hollenback, 1985) . More recently, Dupagne, Potter, and Cooper (in press) have investigated authorship patterns by gender in eight leading communication journals from 1965 to 1989. They found