Boys left behind at school while girls get trip

[Quickchat1]

Recently my sons class went on an educational trip to a local university. But only the girls. The boys were left behind with a cover teacher listening to music and generally doing very little. My son is GCSE year and would have benefited from a computing and science event. No it was only for the girls with no mention of anything for the boys. I understand this was a STEM event for girls only but if there was a STEM event for boys only there would be uproar! AIBU?

the fact is many girls just don’t like STEM

Of course some girls don't like STEM subjects, just as some boys don't. But for many girls, it's not really an active decision.

A couple of years ago there was a programme on the BBC, where they gave a group of late-teenage girls/women a two-week internship in IT (might have been longer than two weeks.) They were introduced to things like designing and writing mobile phone apps.

The thing that really struck me was that until they were given this opportunity, careers in tech simply hadn't been something they'd considered. It just wasn't even on their radar.

I'm fine with girls (and boys) who have actively decided not to persuade a career in STEM. We still need linguists, artists, historians, carers, shop assistants, caterers and so on. But it should be a deliberate choice, not just drifting into a job you have head about, and completely ignoring the ones which you're completely unaware of.

And that comes back to funding for careers advice, casual depictions of these careers in every day life and entertainment, and schools outreach activities, particularly for those groups who just don't seem to have much awareness.

(My first degree is history - I am in a very technical role, but on a faily basis, I reckon I use my history degree at least as much as my comp.sci degree, if not more, particularly the analytical skills, research skills and ability to write.)

As for there being no male privilege in IT... if only.

There have been thousands of articles written about it, one of which is Philip Guo on silent technical privilege. I'm also looking forward to the new book by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic on Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? It's a question I've asked myself many times.

One of the privileges men in IT get is not being asked to attend sessions in Women's History Month about all the barriers and biases against women in tech. HR preach to the converted, while all the men who really need to be aware of unconscious bias and so on are left in the office to work. They're never asked to support STEM-promotion activities either. We cannot fix any gender imbalance in the workplace if we're simply not engaging most of the people in that workplace.

@EBearhug I frequently hear the retort that many girls don't like STEM however in my field IT people outside the sector as well as some people in it don't seem to realise that job roles change and evolve. One of the positions I recently did, didn't exist 5 years ago simply because technology was not used in that way.

There are loads of different roles in IT let alone the rest of STEM and some of them are very people focused. For example you now cannot develop a good user interface if you don't do research with people who will use it.

You also don't need an undergraduate computer science degree to get into IT in this country. I didn't do one. While the majority of people I've worked with have had a STEM degree others have had language including English, music related and social science degrees. Or even no degree at all. It is harder to get into it without a STEM degree but not impossible. Personally when I hear that women don't do Computer Science degrees I don't worry as I actually know Computer Science graduates who have never worked in the sector, but when I hear women aren't doing other STEM degrees I then do get worried as it limits the wide range of jobs you can go into with ease.

Ebearhug an awful lot of boys won't know you could get a job out of designing apps. It's not on their radar either.

“Ebearhug an awful lot of boys won't know you could get a job out of designing apps. It's not on their radar either.”

Do you live in an Amish community?

The thing is bookmum boys are more likely to know those types of jobs exist because they are more likely to choose those subjects in the first place.

However, nobody knows everything about every job out there and the labour market is dynamic. Young people will be going into jobs that don’t yet exist or have been changed beyond recognition. We need to be teaching young people career management skills so they can research effectively and are equipped for the labour market they will be engaging with.

BertrandRussell

You also don't need an undergraduate computer science degree to get into IT in this country.

This is an important point. Many more men go through the traditional route of a computer science degree and straight into industry. Women in technology are far more likely to have come in vía another route - including me; my first degree is in history. As a general rule, I think a broader background makes better employees, more experience and different perspectives.

That won't work for all STEM fields, though. I don't think anyone is going to become a research physicist without learning about physics for years, because degrees are built on the knowledge from A-levels and A-levels on GCSEs. That's not to say you can't go back and gain that knowledge (Open University, for example,) but we do specialise too early in this country, which cuts off opportunities for people who may have no idea what they want to do yet.

No I don't live in a Amish community. I live in London. My daughter is in Year 6 of a fairly normal London Primary school. Since nursery class the boys and girls have done every single subject together and equal. They do PE together (although since year 4 they get changed in different rooms). Oh and the girls got the period talk in Year 5 but the boys didn't. Buy everything has been taught equally for almost 8 years. Next year is Secondary school. Again all lessons will be boys and girls together with the exception of some (not all) PE lessons.
So I really cannot understand how at the age of 13 when it is time to pick gcse subjects boys are magically aware you could get a job inventing apps and girls wouldn't.

Oh and my daughter is technology obsessed and often the unoffical Tech Support for the staff when they have technology problems. Neither me or her Dad are particularly interested in tech stuff so we have no clue where she got the interest from.

So I really cannot understand how at the age of 13 when it is time to pick gcse subjects boys are magically aware you could get a job inventing apps and girls wouldn't.

Because of the "you can't be what you cant see" factor. Given you're not Amish I imagine you've seen the video where the primary kids are all asked to draw a firefighter, fighter pilot and brain surgeon and they nearly all (boys and girls) draw all three as men. Then the doors open and the women who do those jobs come in. Big reveal. Everyone realises their unconscious biases etc.

The fact is that women are hugely underrepresented in technology roles. It's not that they don't know those jobs exist. It's that they don't think it's for people like them. That often isn't even a conscious decision on their parts.

bookmum but we aren't talking about individuals here. We're talking about trends. All the data tells us that girls are less likely to choose STEM subjects and women are hugely underrepresented in STEM careers. That's not just due to what lessons they attend at school but is hugely influenced by society as a whole.

We're your children bought identical toys growing up? Did your daughter get cars, toolkits as well as dolls? Did your son get bought dolls alongside his trucks and superheros? What about the TV programmes they watched? How did they represent both genders? How about you....when you talk about doctors do you say 'he' but refer to 'she' when discussing nurses??

And it's not ' magic' bookmum it's called unconscious bias and societal norms.

It's really sad that people are arguing about this on International Women's Day

In a nutshell.

Well l can't speak for all children and how their parents have raised them and what toys they have bought them obviously but from an educational point of view I have seen that boys and girls do almost everything together and equally for the Primary and early part of secondary and if they have been in a day care environment (Nursery etc) they will have had the same since then.
It seems then education is treating children equally but parents are the ones who aren't. I guess the 'girls only' stem event should have been for the parents.

Noblegiraffe true, but on the other side it is literally impossible to find craft sets thsat aren't aimed at girls which is also a pity!!!!

"It's a doll"
A toy you can design and make clothes for. Or design and build a cot or a highchair using different materials and skills.
My technology obsessed girl has 5 versions of Nintento DS consoles. She also has 5 baby dolls. She loves both and plays with both.

BookMum. Observational studies have shown that in primary school, bright girls are more likely to be asked to work with weaker students to help them, under the guise that teaching others, will cement their learning. Boys are less likely to be asked to do this and instead are more likely to be found working in small groups with the other bright boys (and occasional girl for balance). These groups then fire off each other and progress at a greater pace. Because teachers (unconscious bias) are more likely to praise girls for their caring behaviour and good manners, girls respond to this, don't answer out in class, in fact are more likely to let others have a go, safe in the knowledge that they know the answer. Boys are generally expected to be noisy and need a dynamic learning environment, therefore, those types of exercises are generally designed for boys which encourages them to think quickly on their feet, guess answers. In higher age groups, girls are more likely to be put with the noisy boys to keep them quiet where this is highly unlikely to happen to the quiet but intelligent boy for fear they might be bullied. Boys then shine in Maths and girls are left glowing in the corner being praised for their neat hand writing and careful work. When it comes then to Maths competitions and the top set, girls are under-represented and don't have the peers they deserve.

bookmum do you understand what we mean by unconscious bias? And how we all have it and it impacts on everything we do?

It's society as a whole .....parents, peers, education, media, toys, shops etc. I teach this....I have literally rafts of information on all different kinds of inequality. This exists and there are people and organisations out there trying to address the issue. Attitudes like yours don't help one little bit.

It seems then education is treating children equally but parents are the ones who aren't.

But parents obviously don't parent in a vacuum and to bring your kids up in a gender neutral way would mean never letting them watch tv, read most books or go in a toy shop and you'd have an extremely limited choice of where to buy clothes. Who has the energy for that, even if it were likely to be effective?

Also, don't assume that because a boy and girl student are sitting in the same lesson that they're being educated equally. Different expectations=different outcomes. If you're a teacher who is disheartened by the high number of girls dropping STEM at GCSE then its probably really hard for you not to create a feedback loop on that.

stayathomer The Works sells quite a lot of craft bits that are fairly unisex but yes you do have a very good point there.

I wouldn't say I have 'attitudes' just observations, experiences and opinions.
That's all.

Okay....your opinion ( which is misinformed) is damaging .

Do you know what we mean by unconscious bias and can you see the impact that has?

So my opinion that BOTH boys and girls should get EQUAL good quality job and careers advice is damaging.
OK.
If you say so.