Childhood culture may influence girls’ interest in science, study finds

Girls under the age of six believe that “brilliant people” or “very, very smart people” can be both male and female. But, from that age on, they tend to think that “brilliantness” is a characteristic more present in boys and that they are “harder”.

This shows how, from a very young age, girls are influenced to think that they are less able to develop studies and succeed in areas considered difficult, such as physics, mathematics and engineering.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons for explaining the gender inequality that still persists in science, especially in the area known as Stem (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).

The findings are in a study by researchers Lin Bian and Sarah-Jane Leslie, from the University of Illinois and the Department of Philosophy at Princeton University, and NYU (New York University) psychology professor Andrei Cimpian, published in 2017 in the journal scientific Science.

The research carried out with 400 children aged between 5 and 7 years in the United States showed how gender stereotypes – manufactured and perpetuated notions of how a certain gender has abilities inherent to sex, and not to the individual – influence children already in childhood.

To assess what aspects boys or girls think are better about their peers than their own gender, the scientists did four separate studies in which they asked children to rate “bright” people and then assign a gender to them, say which activities they preferred to do (those intended for “very, very smart” people or those who “try very hard”) and whether they considered children their age to be “very smart” or not.

In the first two studies, in which the questions were to identify people as bright or very intelligent, five-year-old girls and boys classified individuals of their own gender as equally intelligent, but there was an inflection from the age of six, when girls considered men smarter and “more generous” women.

In the third study, 6-year-olds and 7-year-olds equally chose games where the focus was on trying hard, but girls the same age said they weren’t interested in games for very smart kids. In the fourth study, when five-year-olds were included, they also chose to play games for intelligent children, but from six years onwards, girls did not think they were good or did not say that they liked games for “very intelligent” people.

The authors conclude that many children, from the age of six, already consider that brilliance is an inherent quality in men, which can influence interests throughout childhood and adolescence and limit the chosen areas of profession.

Although the survey included a middle-class and almost entirely white audience, other surveys support the idea that women are less valued and encouraged to pursue a career in science.

This idea ends up reflecting on the fact that, although they correspond to more than half of postgraduate students in the world, less than 30% of women at the top of their careers in the scientific field, according to a survey carried out by L’Oréal in partnership with UNESCO.

This Saturday (11) is the International Day of Girls and Women in Science. The date was first established in 2015 by Unesco to give visibility to female participation in science and join efforts to combat still-present inequality.

For Helena Nader, the 1st woman to chair the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (ABC) in over 106 years since its creation, the importance of valuing the participation of girls in science through examples, such as the chemist Marie Curie, the first (and only ) person to win the Nobel Prize in two different (scientific) areas.

“For the girls, what we have tried to do is to place some figures as emblematic, as leaders for them. Because many times, many girls do not think that science or engineering is an area for women. And we have to demystify that. “, he said.

According to Nader, the advances made in recent years to increase the female presence in high-ranking positions in science are important, but the low participation of girls in courses in areas such as engineering and exact sciences is representative of cultural differences in childhood.

“Unfortunately, much of what happens is brought from home. If you look, education tends to be segregated. There cannot be a ‘toy for girls’ and a ‘toy for boys’, what should exist are toys for children. This stigmatizes It’s necessary to start a work in pre-school to tell both boys and girls: you can do anything”, he completes.

Next Monday (13), starting at 2 pm, ABC will organize a special event in celebration of the date. The program is open to the public and can be followed virtually through the following link.