Taking Stock: Where We've Been, Where We Are, Where We're Going

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INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this article is to trace the trajectory of women's progress in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology (SMET) over the past decade and suggest directions for the future of women's participation in these fields. To do this, we track indicators of women's progress toward attaining parity, review the research and theories that attempt to explain reasons for male-female differences in SMET participation, consider the role of intervention approaches (on the basis of the findings of research) in addressing these inequities, and discuss contextual influences such as societal change and education reform on efforts to achieve gender parity in SMET. We ask the question, Given the advances made by women in SMET up to this point, what are logical next steps to preserve and expand the gains made by women in these fields so that true parity1 may be achieved? Answering this question will require an identification of gaps that still remain to be closed, as well as fundamental premises that may need to be reexamined. Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework that guides our thinking about these issues.

According to our framework, differences between males and females in terms of SMET course taking, performance, degree attainment, and workforce participation have generated a number of theories to explain the differences. These theories can be grouped under four main headings: testing-based theories, biologically-based theories, social-psychological theories, and cognitively based theories, each of which attempt to explain the differential participation of women and girls in SMET fields. The theories and research studies suggest intervention approaches to address the problem of gender inequity in SMET. Some of these interventions have been widely implemented and may have contributed over time to the narrowing of gender equity gaps in course taking, performance, degree acquisition, and workforce participation. Concurrently, other influences, such as those of education reform, changes in society such as the women's movement, workforce pressures, and the technological revolution, may have also helped promote gender-equitable policies and practices. Finally, in a feedback loop, gender equity changes in SMET participation inform the explanations (theories) that we have constructed, resulting in the enhancement of our knowledge about the problem, which in turn results in changes in our approaches to the solution (intervention approaches).

Notes from this section

*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Patricia B. Campbell, Campbell-Kibler Associates, Inc., 80 Lakeside Drive, Groton Ridge Hts., Groton, MA 01450; e-mail: campbell@campbellkibler.com. The authors wish to thank Ben Pogodzinski, Ella Gao, Sarah Manes, Laurie Forcier, Joan Burrelli, Lesley Perlman, and Earl Hadley for their assistance with this article. They would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
1 True parity will be achieved when an individual's sex or race/ethnicity is not a predictor of his or her job or profession.

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