PUBBLICAZIONE/PUBLICATION

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://gendermore.unimore.it/handle/123456789/1575

Browse

Settings

Discipline: search.filters.discipline.EngineeringSubject: search.filters.subject.Science

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Item type:Publication,
    The Gender-Equality Paradox in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education. Open PDF 
    (2018)
    Stoet, Gijsbert
    ;
    Geary, David C.
    The underrepresentation of girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields is a continual concern for social scientists and policymakers. Using an international database on adolescent achievement in science, mathematics, and reading ( N = 472,242), we showed that girls performed similarly to or better than boys in science in two of every three countries, and in nearly all countries, more girls appeared capable of college-level STEM study than had enrolled. Paradoxically, the sex differences in the magnitude of relative academic strengths and pursuit of STEM degrees rose with increases in national gender equality. The gap between boys' science achievement and girls' reading achievement relative to their mean academic performance was near universal. These sex differences in academic strengths and attitudes toward science correlated with the STEM graduation gap. A mediation analysis suggested that life-quality pressures in less gender-equal countries promote girls' and women's engagement with STEM subjects.
  • Item type:Publication,
    A Goal Congruity Model of Role Entry, Engagement, and Exit: Understanding Communal Goal Processes in STEM Gender Gaps Open PDF 
    (SAGE Publications Inc., 2017)
    Diekman, A.B.
    ;
    Steinberg, M.
    ;
    Brown, E.R.
    ;
    Belanger, A.L.
    ;
    Clark, E.K.
    The goal congruity perspective provides a theoretical framework to understand how motivational processes influence and are influenced by social roles. In particular, we invoke this framework to understand communal goal processes as proximal motivators of decisions to engage in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). STEM fields are not perceived as affording communal opportunities to work with or help others, and understanding these perceived goal affordances can inform knowledge about differences between (a) STEM and other career pathways and (b) women’s and men’s choices. We review the patterning of gender disparities in STEM that leads to a focus on communal goal congruity (Part I), provide evidence for the foundational logic of the perspective (Part II), and explore the implications for research and policy (Part III). Understanding and transmitting the opportunities for communal goal pursuit within STEM can reap widespread benefits for broadening and deepening participation. © 2016, © 2016 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.
  • Item type:Publication,
    Standing on the Shoulders of (Male) Giants: Gender Inequality and the Technological Impact of Scientific Ideas
    (Social Science Research Network, 2022)
    Bikard, Michaël
    ;
    Fernandez-Mateo, Isabel
    We argue that gender inequality in science and technology means that ideas are less likely to be built upon if their author is a woman versus a man. Testing this empirically is challenging because men and women tend to work on different ideas whose potential is largely unobservable. To address this challenge, we exploit the occurrence of simultaneous discoveries in science – i.e., instances when a man and a woman have published the same idea around the same time – and track the citations to their subsequent publications in patented inventions. We find that scientific publications receive fewer patent citations, that is, they have a lower technological impact, when their main author is a woman. This gap is not driven by women’s lower propensity to produce patented inventions based on their own ideas, but rather by other inventors’ lower likelihood to build on those ideas. Additional analysis suggests that supply-side factors alone, such as the greater saliency of men’s work, are unlikely to drive our results. Rather, inventors seem to pay more attention to men’s ideas. Our research highlights that gender inequality shapes more than individuals’ careers. It also shapes the extent to which their ideas are used to create new technologies.