Sapna Cheryan study cited in Indiana Student Daily article about mentors closing the STEM gender gap
Excerpted from IDS
EDITORIAL: Mentors can help close the STEM gender gap
BY EDITORIAL BOARD Published Feb 20, 2018Adam Maltese, an assistant professor of science education at IU, will lead a project designed to study the role of mentorship in increasing girls’ involvement in science, technology, engineering and math education, thanks to a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
The Editorial Board applauds the initiative’s goal to give much-needed attention to an imbalance of gender representation in STEM fields, and we especially support its focus on early education.
The three-year Role Models in Engineering Education project will build on a 2017 publication in the American Educational Research Association journal that Maltese co-authored with Christina Cooper, an assistant professor of biology at Corban University.
Research authored in 2016 by Sapna Cheryan , an associate professor of psychology at the University of Washington, identifies three large barriers for women in STEM. These include a lack of pre-college experience, the gender gap in belief about one’s abilities and a discouragingly masculine culture as the three leading inhibitors of female involvement in STEM fields.
These issues can all be at least partially addressed by mentors who encourage girls to believe in themselves from a young age and help these girls navigate gender-based challenges.
Read the entire article here .