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Women in Science Worksheet

1) According to the article, only 12.8% of STEM jobs in the UK are held by women and girls are less likely to study sciences like physics at school and university level compared to boys. 2) The article suggests that girls are often discouraged from science at a young age by the stereotype that science is a male domain. Even when female scientists are portrayed in media, there is often more focus on their appearance than their work. 3) The article also discusses that women may have an "internal bias" where they underestimate their own abilities, and that studies have shown evidence of external bias as well, with female scientists receiving less pay, resources, and opportunities for travel or promotion compared

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616 views

Women in Science Worksheet

1) According to the article, only 12.8% of STEM jobs in the UK are held by women and girls are less likely to study sciences like physics at school and university level compared to boys. 2) The article suggests that girls are often discouraged from science at a young age by the stereotype that science is a male domain. Even when female scientists are portrayed in media, there is often more focus on their appearance than their work. 3) The article also discusses that women may have an "internal bias" where they underestimate their own abilities, and that studies have shown evidence of external bias as well, with female scientists receiving less pay, resources, and opportunities for travel or promotion compared

Uploaded by

Janna Rick
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Why arent there more women in science?

1. Read the first paragraph of the article and find 4 facts about women in science.
Which fact(s) do you find most surprising? Discuss.
Why arent there more women in science?

A. According to the campaigning group, WISE (women in science and engineering), in the UK, only
12.8% of jobs in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) are held by women.
Similarly, the proportion of boys studying science at school leaving age is still much higher
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than girls, especially Physics, where its about 78%. This continues at university, where 52% of
male undergraduates take a science degree, compared with 40% of women. The situation is not
dissimilar in the United States, where only 1/5 of physics degrees are awarded to women.
But why is this?

2. Make a list of possible reasons why there are far fewer women studying and working
in science than men.

3. Now read the rest of the article. What is the main idea in each paragraph? Compare
the ideas in the article with your ideas.

B. It seems that girls are often put off early by an assumption that girls dont do science, especially
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chemistry and physics. The scientists in films and on TV are usually men (though this does now
appear to be changing), and when female scientists do make it onto TV, there
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is still often a focus on their looks, rather than their science. Research by the University of
Cardiff analysed 51 newspaper interviews with scientists, and found that half of the profiles
of women referred to their looks, compared with 21% of the male profiles.

C. Women may have what is known as an internal bias, causing them to under-value their own
abilities or intelligence. Research has shown that if women are told that men do better in
maths tests than women, this can affect their score negatively.

D. And there is certainly also some external bias. A study carried out by the American Institute of
Physics, looking at 15,00 physicists from 130 different countries, found that almost always the
female scientists received less money, less space to work in and fewer opportunities to travel.
Another study showed that both male and female professors were more likely to give the job
to a male candidate than a female one, when given the same curriculum vitae, with a male or
female name attached. They also planned to pay the male candidate more.

E. Finally, childcare may also be an issue. Probably because fewer women work in science,
there is often some difficulty in taking time out to have children, or in working flexible hours to
fit around their needs.

4. Discuss the following questions.

Do you particularly agree (or disagree) with any of the reasons given? What
could be done to change any of the situations described in the article?

www.teachingenglish.org.uk

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