STEM Education & The Leaky Gender Gap Pipeline

Intersectional feminism: The task At Hand

Vanessa VanDeMark

Paul A. Pacheco Jr.

At A Glance...

In this reflection, the authors will address the current gender gap in STEM by discussing how underrepresented women are a minority in STEM education and industry. Recommendations for interventions that are best for closing the gap and making participation in STEM more accessible and engaging for all students are also included in this report. The two authors, Vanessa VanDeMark and Paul Pacheco attend Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and will graduate with a Bachelor's in Biomedical Engineering and Psychological and Cognitive Science, respectively.

Vanessa enrolled in a Humanities Seminar relating to Intersectional Feminism in the fall semester. After spending seven weeks learning and researching marginalized groups of women and their corresponding struggles, she has chosen to explore the pipeline of women's involvement in STEM and highlight some of the critical disparities. Vanessa is also a first-generation college student, lending her perspective on how that experience plays a role in college life, especially at a STEM, male-dominated school.

Another student enrolled in the class, Paul Pacheco, has studied educational psychology surrounding classroom interventions in STEM environments. Paul is also a first-generation latine student enrolled in WPI’s teacher preparation program to obtain his Initial Teaching License in High School Biology granted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. During his junior year teaching practicum, Paul taught in remote, in-person, and hybrid learning environments. In continuation, Paul taught high school biology at a local Worcester high school and has completed his Massachusetts Candidate Assessment of Performance (CAP) to become a certified high school biology teacher

The authors of this paper took a combined approach compounding their experiences as a woman in STEM and as an underrepresented educator in a high school STEM classroom to research, elaborate, and discover what the gender gap is, how it affects women, and what interventions can be done by classroom educators to increase minority participation in STEM.

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Our stance

In 2015, the United States (U.S.) was ranked 38th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science according to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The U.S. also ranked 30th in math and 19th in science among the 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which sponsors the PISA initiative (“U.S. Academic Achievement Lags That of Many Other Countries”). Why is the U.S. ranked so low? What could be happening in the U.S. to result in our education system falling below the 50th percentile in math and science? Ironically, the U.S. contributes around 640 billion dollars to education (“U.S. Public Education Spending Statistics”). The funding is evidently there (we acknowledge the right to free education and resources is not accessible for everyone, but theoretically, it should be considering the amount spent), but still, the U.S. trails behind other first-world nations. We believe the lack of equity and representation in public STEM education plays a role in the U.S. falling behind in math and science. Women and people of color (POC) are severely underrepresented and disadvantaged in STEM education and industry in the U.S.. Women from minority backgrounds experience disadvantages in STEM education that result in decreased learning opportunities, outcomes, and occupational retention. There needs to be an increase in intersectional female representation, support, and interventions to improve the equitable integration of women in STEM. We recommend incorporating culturally responsive and feminist pedagogy into STEM learning environments to further educational equity and inclusion efforts for women from minoritized backgrounds.

How Does PISA Help Education Reform? (OECD)

Note: This video presents the purpose of PISA and their education standards when evaluating countries' academic performances. Watch the video if you would like to learn more.

Journalist Amanda Ripley explains the US' performance in PISA by mapping the US states to PISA countries. (poptech)

Note: This video presents how the Unites States was rated using PISA standards to describe the differences between the U.S and other countries. The presentation explains how the data collected through PISA to determine that the U.S. spends the most money on education than any other nation and still ranks 21st in math when comparing samples from highly affluent families going to the best public and private schools in their countries. Ripley explains how "poverty and many other things" play a role in the U.S. education ranking. What it really comes down to is the United States' teaching style and pedagogy. The United States education system is easier than their host county's school system claimed U.S. international students while studying abroad. The schools they attended were in counties ranked higher than the U.S.. The students claimed schooling requires greater understanding while learning content. For example, in South Korea when students learn geometry they also learn the theories behind math principles and how they connect to other math subjects, like algebra. They also mentioned that students in other countries care more about school and know that education plays a big role in future socioeconomic status and occupation. Additionally, keep in mind that the video is from 2021 and some information is out of date. For example, U.S. class sizes are larger now than they were before.