Girls & maths/sciences

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londonbloke
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Apr 04, 2010 10:22 pm

Girls & maths/sciences

Post by londonbloke »

Interesting discussion so far on this on another thread. I believe it's worth exploring this in a separate thread.

There seems to have been 2 types of girls school: in one, it was rare to do maths/sciences and this was not well supported; in the other, no distinction was made between "girls'" subjects and other subjects and girls happily tackled maths/sciences and flourished.

I work in a co-ed school where, apart from some Asian girls, most girls do not regard maths/sciences as their domain. In general, girls and boys conform to the gender stereotypes and behave accordingly in maths/sciences and languages/humanities/cookery.

This is one reason why Wren Academy is especially interesting. I believe they teach the genders separately in the core subjects: english, maths, science, ICT.

What are other people's experiences?
hermanmunster
Posts: 12817
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:51 am
Location: The Seaside

Post by hermanmunster »

My DD is at an all girls engineering specialty GS - don't think it is an issue there..
Ed's mum
Posts: 3310
Joined: Mon Aug 13, 2007 11:47 am
Location: Warwickshire.

Post by Ed's mum »

Maybe there is a third type?- where typically 'boy' subjects are favoured and 'girl' subjects are seen as lesser: as was the case at the single sex GS I attended.
busybeenfun
Posts: 80
Joined: Mon Mar 01, 2010 10:13 pm
Location: Abbots Langley

Girls & Science

Post by busybeenfun »

I was one of the few girls in my mixed grammar (in Bucks) who studied all three sciences at both GCSE and A level. I went on to study medicine initially and then went on to gain a PhD in Pharmacology.

I now work in the pharmaceutical industry and have to say that within the 'medically related departments' e.g. clinical research, medical information, regulatory affairs, medical affairs it is dominated by women who have scientific or pharmacy backgrounds.

So in the school environment female scientists are the minority but in the workplace they are the majority!
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