Woman’s under-representation in STEM: The part role-models have played in the past and do we still need them today?

Abstract

n 2005, Blickenstaff wrote that woman were under-represented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in both education and careers in most industrialised countries around the world. This under-representation is not something new, it was identified as problematic as early as the 1980s (Kelly et al.,1981; Smail et al., 1982). While encouraging girls to study and pursue careers in the technology sector continues to be problematic even today (Bauer, 2017). After introducing the topic, the paper begins with a brief discussion of some of the factors that researchers have believed influenced this under-representation. Several ways forward to improve the state of affairs from the literature are then discussed, before turning to concentrate specifically on role-models and the part that they can play in changing the situation. The next section focuses on the author’s personal experiences of being a role- model in a male-dominated workplace in the mid-1960s when she started her career as the first qualified female woodwork teacher in the UK having trained as a product designer and maker of furniture. This is followed by a discussion of various research projects concerned with the positive effects of role model exposure in terms of: motivating individuals through acting as behavioral models, representing the possible, being inspirational; improving a sense of belonging; impacting on academic self-efficacy; and negating stereotypes. The final section looks at very recent research and comes to some conclusions about the question posed in the paper’s title: Do we still need role-models toda