Vanessa is Vice President of Programs at Project Lead The Way. Vanessa's new piece for Mediaplanet, "Engaging Girls in STEM Starts in Kindergarten," is excerpted below. You can read the full guest post here.
Engaging Girls in STEM Starts in Kindergarten
While women make up approximately half of the overall workforce, they make up less than a quarter of STEM workers. It’s a pattern that begins much earlier than college or even high school.
Research on students’ self-efficacy in math and science subjects shows a startling reality: girls and boys begin developing gender stereotypes and self-selecting out of these subjects as early as second grade. By the time girls reach high school, they make up only 25 percent of students pursuing science and engineering pathways. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in 2015 women earned fewer than 19 percent of bachelor’s degrees in engineering.
Continue reading "Engaging Girls in STEM Starts in Kindergarten."