To complain to Sunday Times on "UK girls flop" headline

[Duckdeamon]

Today's Sunday times (can't link as they have a paywall) has an article about the UK having one of the biggest gender gaps in science at age 15 of 67 countries (upcoming OECD/ Pisa report). Article is interesting: through quotes it discusses sexism, science and maths and technology leading to well paid job opportunities, that girls are being prevented from doing, gender imbalances in science, and evidence that girls are as good at maths and science as boys.

But why use the headline "UK girls flop in science league"? Which suggests that the girls are at fault!

The results are shocking, and girls are being let down.

They were really out of order there babydubs.

Reading what you are doing now and how much you love it made me smile!

(I trained as an account in between - that bored me senseless too!)

Could the problem partly be the other way around?

For some reason girls are so vastly better at/ more engaged by arts and humanities subjects than boys at GCSE age (again as a vast generalisation) that they come to seethemselves as really good at English lit or art or music or French or history or whatever and naturally those are the A levels they chose. Boys who haven't especially engaged with arts and humanities are not automatically drawn to them so consider maths and sciences.

Very few other countries let children drop key subjects at age 14 or 16. It's more normal to have to take everything right through to at least 16, often 18, with just a bit of room for specialisation (take 2 foreign languages but must take 1, must take maths til age 18 but can choose further maths etc.)

Arts and humanities too attractive to girls combined with being allowed to totally drop subjects/ specialise too much too early are reasons for girls being under represented in maths and science IMO.

The aim isn't to make girls do science when they don't want to, but to make it so that there are no barriers to pursuing something that they want to do.

That goes for boys as well of course. I'm not sure which subjects are seen as closed to boys in a school context though. Would be interesting to hear. I know reading is a problem in some groups of boys. But I can't think of a standard school subject where I know that society deems it "for girls" IYSWIM. Would be interested to hear people's thoughts.

A friend at school had the same conference as me, she also refused STEM, she wanted a career that wasn't going to stop her being home with children in the future - she wanted to be an earth mother from the moment she clapped eyes on her first doll. She was ridiculed for wanting to be 'just a mom'.

My school was crap come to think of it!

The subjects I can think of in my GCSE classes that were pretty much girl only were: Child development, psychology, religious studies, textiles, and sociology.

and food tech.

It does sound pretty crap! I'm assuming they were extremely results focussed.

I have to say though with my DD if she didn't have any strong preferences I would advise her to go for the things which give the widest and most potentially lucrative opportunities, and personally I have found that a science background has served me well in my career.

That's interesting babydubs. A peculiar mix. I think you're on the money though.

Why is religious studies "female" I wonder.

Absolute bollocks that school age girls are encouraged to do sciences. There is SOME work being done, but it certainly isn't across the UK and in all comps/privates/academies/free schools.

The messages primary school aged girls get through toy advertising is still that science is for boys.

me too, and of course now, I benefit massively because the organisations I work for are desperate to have some women on the books to shore up all their stated compliance and diversity stats at the corporate level.

there must be 1000s of girls coming out of uni with English degrees now. with a science degree even if you don't want to work in that field I assume its easy to get on grad schemes, teaching etc with it.

I can't comment at GCSE from personal experience as I went to a girls school til 16 (and still only took 2 sciences and was told by my maths teacher that I was "one of those feminists" when I was 15... because I had a fringe...)

At a mixed sixth form college for A level there were about 20 students in my English lit class, only 2 of whom were boys, and the same in sociology. History was 50/50 to start with but a lot of the girls dropped out (of the subject, not school) leaving only 2 girls and about 10 boys by the end of the upper 6th (year 13).

Here's the A-level gender breakdown

This is interesting. The top sets for maths and science at dds mixed academy are predominantly girls. It will be interesting to see which go on to science a levels. Dd has chosen maths physics and chemistry and wants to do aeronautical engineering. I'm not sure where this has come from, I think just her own interests, the school don't seem to have given much encouragement career wise.

Yes I can see the sense there, I think good career guidance would do most subjects the world of good - for both sexes. Being able to link now with future is hard for teens making subject choices. It all seems quite abstract so going with what you enjoy at the time seems the only sensible thing to do. I think I would have wasted less time, and been less fraught over my choices if I'd had proper career guidance.

Interesting.

I had a similar education to you MrTumbles and there was no indication that some subjects were for or not for anyone. So I did what I enjoyed and then when I got to 6th form (mixed) found myself surrounded by boys, which was a bit of a shock. I hadn't given it a second thought / had no idea that was going to happen.

The single sex vs mixed sex stats are the stand-out item for me. They brush away any of the "oh girls just don't like it" arguments IMO. They are just for Physics BTW, from the Institute of Physics. I don't think things are as marked in other subjects.

so chemistry fairly 50/50 which is heartening. I am surprised at PE - I know quite a few girls doing that that want to be personal trainers, sports therapists etc.

the far right is no surprise to me.

Sorry, I was replying to Pilchard.

Little - I wasn't saying it was across the Uk - I was sharing an experience!!

I wonder what that graph looks like if Languages are all put in a bucket together NG, as there are so many there and so when I look at it all I get is "girls do languages" IYSWIM.

where are the physics stats?

homepage girls in physics

item that stat came from

wow. so WHY are girls much more likely to do physics at single sex schools? it must surely be because of peer pressure and the culture of the coed schools. Has to be something for individual schools to address?

I think as a parent I really need to keep my eye on the ball with this one, I have a son in y11 who is predicted A*s in his Maths, Chemistry and Biology GCSES (he got an A in Physics last year), he is planning to take Maths, FM, Physics and Computing at A Level to go into an engineering career.

I also have a daughter in y7 who has been watching her brother and at the moment loves the sound of those A Levels and wants to be a computer programmer eventually. My dd's current ability in maths and science far outstrips her brother's at the same age so she's well on track for it but already only months into secondary school she is starting to talk about the boys making niggly comments about her in those subjects and she's seeming less confident.

nothing changes. same thing happened to me at school. You have to help her spin it - from nerd to geek which is much cooler. it is hard she will have to be string and resist peer pressure. Are there any other girls with similar interests? I always thought banding together might be the way to do it. Tell her to stick to her guns.

I do find it strange how movies are full of cool girl hackers and secret agents with gadgets who are women, yet at school you're seen as an oddball if you like maths/science/computing.

The headline seems unfair in that it is blaming schoolgirls for problems that exist across UK society.

A lot of people are quite ignorant of the role of science and engineering because it's not high status within our general UK society.

It's far cooler to be an environmental activist with no science background than an geologist/engineer with a scary looking drill for back up. (Some evidence for this is the recent coverage of fracking; I'm for going forward with fracking but the opposition just looked far cooler didn't they?)

I think that it is seen as more socially aware and acceptable to be a non-scientist. My theory is that leaves science education and it's resultant career opportunities for the more individualistic personalities and those whose parents advise on the careers available. Yet engineering careers give the scope to participate in collaborative work which builds the world and keeps it moving.

A couple of well qualified young women I know are drawn to journalism and PR. They are going to find it very difficult to get paid regularly let alone well. They did have qualifications in maths and science subjects but didn't see the careers and workplaces as appealing.