ERIC Number: EJ793919
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2007
Pages: 3
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1938-5978
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Available Date: N/A
Closing the Engineering Gender Gap: Viewers like You
Sullivan, Brigid
New England Journal of Higher Education, v22 n1 p26-28 Sum 2007
A study published in the "Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering" found that girls are completing high school science and math courses at the same rate as boys: 94 percent of girls took biology (compared with 91 percent of boys), 64 percent took chemistry (57 percent for boys) and 26 percent studied physics (32 percent of boys). Yet despite similar rates of participation and achievement in high school science and math courses, young women continue to lag behind their male peers in pursuing degrees in many science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. Changing the perceptions that engineering is a "man's profession" and engineering is a less "people-oriented" profession is the focus of the WGBH Extraordinary Women in Engineering initiative. Working in collaboration with nearly 50 professional engineering associations, universities and corporations, WGBH is developing an extensive multimedia campaign emphasizing ways the engineering field helps improve people's lives. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation and Northrop Grumman, the project is developing an interactive web site that will use streaming video portraits of successful female engineers to combat the misperceptions many girls have about the profession.
Descriptors: High Schools, Females, Engineering, Males, Gender Differences, Technical Occupations, Public Television, Programming (Broadcast)
New England Board of Higher Education. 45 Temple Place, Boston, MA 02111. Tel: 617-357-9620; Fax: 617-338-1577; e-mail: connection@nebhe.org; Web site: http://www.nebhe.org/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: High Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
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