I chose the article, “Breaking Science Stereotypes” by Alec Bodzin and Mike Gehringer. This article appealed to me because it made me think back to our first class and how we had to draw a scientist and almost all of us drew a male scientist (even with the majority of the class being females)! The authors of this article wanted to see if a scientist’s visit to the classroom would change students perceptions of scientists.
This article also had the students they were working with draw a scientist and write about the scientists they drew. These drawings were scored using the “Draw-a-Scientist Test-Checklist,” which has common stereotypes of scientists that other students have had in the past.
The first scientist that these students met was a female chemical engineer. “As the scientist spoke, she described that there were few females in her profession and encouraged girls in the class to enjoy science and mathematics in school and consider careers in science” (Bodzin & Gehringer, 2011, p. 37). I thought that it was great that this female scientist was the first scientist to visit the classroom, because I am sure that is not what the class was expecting. It is important for young females to have role models to look up too and aspire to be like one day. I feel like most young girls don’t see or think of many females in the science or math field. The scientist also wore a blue lab coat, instead of the stereotypical white lab coat that many people think a scientists wears. The lab activity she chose for the class to complete was great, as it was hands on and allowed the students to complete an experiment very similar to what this scientist does for her job.
The other class had a male physicist come to their class and he wore a shirt and tie, instead of a lab coat. He gave the students rubber gloves and goggles to wear while he conducted a number of demonstrations. By allowing these students to observe these chemical reactions in person, it not only taught students about changes in matter but also made them interested in some of the things that a physicist does.
After the scientists visited the classes, the students were asked to draw a scientist again and the researchers compared both drawings.
“In both drawings, students drew scientists with several types of stereotypic features, including laboratory coats, eyeglass, and symbols of research such as laboratory tables, flasks, test tubes, and so on. In most of the drawings scientists were depicted as white males working indoors in a laboratory setting” (Bodzin & Gehringer, 2011, p. 39). It is interesting that both these students and our class had many of these stereotypical drawings and features in our pictures. “After the visit, the students’ drawings depicted fewer scientists wearing lab coats (60.9 percent down from 85.5 percent) and eyeglasses (46.4 percent down from 53.6 percent). Also, more female images were drawn during the posttest” (Bodzin & Gehringer, 2011, p. 40). Overall, all of the common stereotypes that were found in the drawings before the scientist visit were found less after in the drawings after the scientist visited.
“It appears the that interaction between the scientists and the students during the classroom visit influenced the students’ perception regarding scientists. The scientists’ visits provided students with the opportunity to see scientists as ordinary people” (Bodzin & Gehringer, 2011, p. 40). I think that this last sentence is so important. Many students have only read about or watched scientists in movies before meeting one in person. The scientists they read about or watch in movies are given these stereotypes, thus, why these students have a certain image of what a scientist looks like. It is great that these researchers wanted to break that stereotype and broaden the image of who a scientist is. “Furthermore, we believe that exposing young girls to female scientists in an elementary school classroom may have a positive influence on their perception of careers for women in the science and engineering fields” (Bodzin & Gehringer, 2011, p. 40). Young girls often hold the misconception that their future career may be in teaching or nursing rather than science and research. Although, the science field is male dominated, there are still women who work in these fields. It is important for you girls to realize that they really can be anything that they want to be and that the world is their oyster. The incorporating of STEM classes into elementary classrooms is a great way to get students involved in the math and science fields, especially girls. I wish that my elementary class had more of a STEM program when I was there.
It is important that this stereotypical image of a scientist as a white male is broken at a young age. Had we had this experience in our elementary classes, we probably would have all drew different images of scientists. Hopefully, as the time goes on, there will be more and more female scientists and that they will be depicted in textbooks and movies. Right now, it seems like only males are represented in these medias. Although breaking the stereotype of the image of a scientist may take a while, it is our job as future educators to make sure that we help teach our students who a scientist is and what they do. I hope to incorporate having scientists come into my future science class to do an activity similar to these researchers.
Source:
Bodzin, A. & Gehringer, M. (2001). Breaking science stereotypes. Science and Children,
January, 36-41.
