© 2024
Local NPR for the Cape, Coast & Islands 90.1 91.1 94.3
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

More Kids are Drawing Women Scientists

northwestern.edu
From a series of drawings by 10- and 11-year-olds in Greece

There’s new evidence that gender stereotypes of scientists are changing. Researchers looked at drawings of scientists made by more than 20,000 children and found that 28 percent drew their scientist as a woman. That’s a dramatic increase from the .6 percent researchers saw 50 years ago, but there’s still room for growth.


“The tendency to draw male scientists did significantly increase during elementary school and middle school,” said David Miller, a graduate student at Northwestern University and lead author of the new study.

 

“So, I think teachers and parents and teachers should be aware that elementary school and middle school are critical periods in which children start forming stereotypes about scientists,” he said. 

Stay Connected
Elsa Partan is a producer and newscaster with CAI. She first came to the station in 2002 as an intern and fell in love with radio. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. From 2006 to 2009, she covered the state of Wyoming for the NPR member station Wyoming Public Media in Laramie. She was a newspaper reporter at The Mashpee Enterprise from 2010 to 2013. She lives in Falmouth with her husband and two daughters.