• Open Access

Discussing underrepresentation as a means to facilitating female students’ physics identity development

Robynne M. Lock and Zahra Hazari
Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 12, 020101 – Published 5 July 2016

Abstract

Despite the fact that approximately half of high school physics students are female, only 21% of physics bachelor’s degrees are awarded to women. In a previous study, drawn from a national survey of college students in introductory English courses, five factors commonly proposed to positively impact female students’ choice of a physical science career were tested using multivariate matching methods. The only factor found to have a positive effect was the explicit discussion of the underrepresentation of women in physics. In order to explore this further, a case study of the classes of one teacher reported to discuss the underrepresentation of women was conducted. Two classroom underrepresentation discussions were recorded, students and teacher were interviewed, and relevant student work was collected. Analyzing the case study data using a figured worlds framework, we found that discussing the underrepresentation of women in science explicitly creates an opportunity for students’ figured worlds of professional and school science to change, and facilitates challenging their own implicit assumptions about how the world functions. Subsequently, the norms in students’ figured worlds may change or become less rigid allowing for a new openness to physics identity development amongst female students.

  • Figure
  • Received 17 May 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.12.020101

This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

  1. Research Areas
  1. Professional Topics
Physics Education Research

Authors & Affiliations

Robynne M. Lock1 and Zahra Hazari2

  • 1Department of Physics & Astronomy, Texas A&M University- Commerce, Commerce, Texas 75429, USA
  • 2Department of Teaching & Learning, Florida International University, Miami, Florida 33199, USA

Article Text

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Issue

Vol. 12, Iss. 2 — July - December 2016

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