8 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Distance travelled: supporting women returning to STEM careers
This poster will illustrate how an innovative distance learning model has been used to support women returning to STEM after a career break and suggest ways that this might be taken forward into a wider STEM Employability agenda. Between 2005 and 2011 the Open University ran an online module to support women scientists, engineers and technologists returning after a career break. The background to the initiative was the UK government concerns about the large numbers of women with high level qualifications in SET subjects who did not return to the sector after taking time out. The course was aimed at those returning to all fields of Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) and has been studied by a total of nearly 1000 participants from across the UK and Ireland. The project has been innovative in delivery, in scope and in partnership and has used e-learning technologies to enhance social presence and networking between participants such as e-portfolios, online forums, virtual world environments and latterly collaborative wikis. Current ongoing evaluation (funded via the Open University’s eSTEeM programme) is looking at the long term impact and outcomes for participants and will be used to inform and shape new approaches to Employability and CPD within the STEM curriculum area
Recommended from our members
Engaging Opportunities: Connecting young people with contemporary research and researchers
This is the final report for ‘Engaging Opportunities’, an RCUK-funded School-University Partnership between the Open University and the Denbigh Teaching School Alliance. Informed by action research, this four-year project was designed to create structured, strategic, sustainable and equitable mechanisms for effective school-university engagement with research. The report describes an evidence-based strategy designed to embed school-university engagement with research within the University’s strategic planning for research and the operational practices of researchers. Through the early stages of our partnership we noted a lack of suitable planning tools that work for researchers, teachers and students. We therefore introduced a flexible and adaptable framework of four types of activity—open lectures, open dialogues, open inquiry and open creativity—combined with an upstream approach to planning based on a set of six principles. A sub-set of these activities were evaluated through a combination of surveys, interviews and interventions. In conclusion, we argue that institutional and professional cultures can be resistant to the prospect of fully embedding school-university engagement with research in a structured, strategic and sustainable manner, and offer suggestions for how this context could and should be changed
Recommended from our members
Women succeeding in the sciences: theories and practices across the Disciplines
This article is a review of a book with the above title
Recommended from our members
Retention of young female post-doc physics researchers in the UK
The talk will describe the results of a research project to investigate the problems young women physics researchers encountered during early stages of their careers and their perceptions of the longer-term difficulties they anticipated were they to pursue a career in physics research. The project examined quantitative data from a large sample of female members of the UK Institute of Physics (IOP) and qualitative data from intensive interviews with 27 young female doctoral and post-doctoral researchers at an early stage in their careers. In the survey of women PhD members of the IOP, only 15% of the younger women (aged under 30) said they had encountered gender barriers compared with 45% of older women. However, within a few years of completing their PhDs only 25% of the young women remained in physics research although they had previously aspired to work in this area. The reasons given for leaving physics included a dislike of the male culture or atmosphere in research labs, the fact that few of the young women thought that they would ever attain a senior physics post, concerns about balancing a research career with raising a young family and anticipating a need to relocate to match a partners career moves. These are clearly gender-related barriers and constraints although these young women often did not perceive them in this way. This research examines the notion of direct and indirect gender barriers. It addresses the idea of subtle discrimination by examining both institutional employment practices and the prevalent male culture or atmosphere in physics research, which contribute to the leaky pipeline in womens physics employment in the UK
Recommended from our members
Girls in science education: of rice and fruit trees
The Gender and Science Reader brings together key writings by leading scholars to provide a comprehensive feminist analysis of the nature and practice of science. Challenging the self-proclaimed objectivity of scientific practice, the contributors uncover the gender, class and racial prejudices of modern science. The Reader draws from a range of media, including feminist criticism, scientific literature, writings about scientific education, and the popular press. Articles are grouped into six thematic sections which address:
* Women in Science - women's access to study and employment in science, combining both analytical evidence and personal testimonies
* Creating Andocentric Science - exploring the gendered origins of science at the time of the Enlightenment
* Analyzing Gendered Science - feminist methodologies and epistemology for the study of science
* Gendered Praxis - examples of how gender bias can affect and distort scientific work
* Science and Identity - how science reinforces gender and racial stereotypes
* Feminist Re-Structuring of Science - what is the future of feminist science studies
Recommended from our members
Women's experiences of online networking for career progression in science, engineering and technology
There is increasing interest in how networking can support women's career progression,particularly in occupations which are male dominated such as science, engineering and technology. The challenges facing women in these professions have been well documented and include: integrating home and work life; confidence and isolation problems; the lack of role models; difficulties in returning to work after career breaks due to fast moving technical advancements; and exclusion from traditional male-orientated networking environments. Some of these issues are being addressed through the formation of women's corporate, public or professional networks. Research has shown the benefits of these and of the social aspects of networking when the primary aim is to receive or provide support. However those with family commitments may find participation in social networking events, often conducted out-of-hours, impractical. One solution may be to take advantage of the growing online social networking culture which is increasingly being used as a tool for career progression. The implications are that online social networking, where communities may be formed regardless of geography and time limitations, and social interactions play a central role, may provide an effective and complementary networking solution for women in the strive for career advancement.
This paper explores the exploitation of online networks by women in order to accommodate more fluid boundaries, diversify their network of contacts and ultimately support career progression in male- dominated professions. We present the different types of online networking environments and investigate how these are beginning to re-shape the professional networks of women and are addressing some of the challenges these women face. We look at issues associated with the strength, reliability and usefulness of relationships formed due to both the online element and the gender-balance of the networks used
Recommended from our members
Invisible witnesses? How scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians are represented on UK television
It is widely believed that sex-role stereotypes of scientists, engineers, technologists and mathematicians (STEM) have the potential to influence viewers’ perceptions of these subjects, and therefore their future course and career choices. Less, however, is known about current portrayals of STEM on UK television, and their influence on children and young people. This paper reports the initial findings from the Invisible Witnesses? Project. Commissioned by the UK Resources Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology this project is investigating gendered representations of STEM on UK television, and the impact of these portrayals on young people's perceptions of STEM. In this paper we provide an outline of our data collection methods, and the quantitative and qualitative methods we have employed to analyse television output for two one-week samples. In presenting some early findings from our analyses we provide a quantitative overview of the first one-week sample of STEM output. We also introduce illustrative quantitative and qualitative findings from one of the genre - news and current affairs – in terms of the gender distribution, roles of the speakers, and emerging themes. The implications of these early findings are briefly discussed alongside suggestions for further work.
The authors of this paper gratefully acknowledge funding for this project from UK Resources Centre for Women in SET and the European Social Fund under the EQUAL Community Initiative programme
Recommended from our members
Investigating gendered representations of scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians on UK children’s television
This chapter provides a critically-informed rationale for some of the qualitative and quantitative methods that can be used to investigate how audiences make sense of science in popular media, in particular in relation to the development of 'self-concept'. These multi-disciplinary authors describe the data collection and analytical methods used in a recent study of children’s reception of science on television. The authors document how they adapted and combined a range of previously used analytical methods to provide a triangulated approach that could take account of the gender and age differences of participants, whilst ensuring that they were an integral part of the research process