Gender Stereotypes About STEM Originate in Early Childhood
Children begin believing in gender-related stereotypes about STEM interest and ability during early childhood. Stereotypes differ based on field of study, and some change while others remain constant.
Recent work from social and developmental psychology shows us that both children and adults are aware of social stereotypes. Stereotypes can be defined as beliefs that are associated with groups of people about common characteristics shared by that group (Tang et al., 2024). Stereotyping can lead to statements like “Women don’t code”, which suggest that fundamental differences between men and women lead to differences in career paths. Adults and children easily notice these kinds of stereotypes and these stereotypes can cause women and minority groups to feel unwelcome in certain fields of STEM as compared to men (Master et al., 2021).
But when do these stereotypes begin? And are there variations in children’s beliefs in gender-related stereotypes about interest and ability depending on children’s age and the field of study?
In a recently published study, Tang et al (2024) used a longitudinal study design to examine how children’s and teenagers’ stereotypes about interest and ability in 4 different STEM fields (math, science, computer science, and engineering) changed in the span of one school year. They were interested in examining for changes in children’s beliefs over the span of a year, whether there were differences between boys and girls, and between different grade levels.
The authors surveyed over a thousand students in Grades 2–8 in Rhode Island. Data collection occurred at 3 different time points (January, May and November).
To measure students’ gender-related stereotypes about interest in math, science, computer science and engineering, students were asked to provide ratings to the questions:
“How much do you think that most boys like the following subjects” and “How much do you think that most girls like the following subjects”.
To measure students’ gender-related stereotypes about ability in math, science, computer science and engineering, students were asked to provide ratings to the questions:
“How good do you think that most boys are at the following subjects?” and “How good do you think most girls are about the following subjects?”.
For all of these questions and for each subject, students were asked to provide a rating on a 6 point scale (for example, to measure perceived interest, 1 = “really do not like” and 6 = “really do like”). To calculate differences in students ratings for each question and subject, the authors subtracted students’ ratings for girls’ interests/ability from their ratings for boys interests/ability. These difference scores are what the authors used for data analysis.
Across Age Groups, Children’s Gender-Related Stereotypes About Interest Varied by STEM field
The authors found that across all grade levels, girls and boys tended to rate girls as more highly interested in math at the first time point (in January), but this tendency changed across the school year. At the second and third time point, boys tended to rate girls as more highly interested math while girls tended to rate boys and girls interests equally.
In students’ ratings for science, the pattern was similar. Initially, girls tended to rate girls as more interested in science, while boys rated boys as more interested in science. At the second time point, girls were more likely to rate girls as more interested, but boys rated girls and boys interests equally. At the third time point, boys tended to rate girls as more interested in science, while girls tended to rate boys and girls interests in science equally.
Patterns for students gender-related stereotypes about interest in computer science and engineering differed from math and science. At all 3 time points, girls and boys tended to rate boys as more interested than girls for both fields.
Across Age Groups, Children’s Gender-Related Stereotypes About Interest Varied by STEM field
Across all 3 time points both boys and girls tended to rate girls’ abilities higher in math compared to boys. In science, at all 3 time points girls tended to rate girls’ abilities higher in science compared to boys, while boys for the most part rated boys and girls abilities equally. For computer science, boys rated boys’ abilities more highly while girls provided equal ratings for girls and boys. For engineering, both boys and girls rated boys’ abilities more highly.
What About Patterns Across Timepoints, Gender and Age Groups?
At the first time point, most participants (across gender and age-groups) believed that girls were more interested in math and better at math than boys, and they were better at science than boys. Participants were also more likely to believe that boys were more interested and better at computer science and engineering compared to girls. But there were differences in how constant these beliefs remained across genders and age groups. For example, there were more likely to be girls who favored girl-favoring math stereotypes in younger students — as students grew older, than stereotypes seemed to become more neutral.
There also seemed to be more boys favoring girl stereotypes about interest and ability in math in the older age group as compared to the younger age group. In science, girls across all grade levels favored interest and ability stereotypes about girls, while boys favored interested or ability stereotypes about boys or were neutral about it. For computer science, boys consistently favored stereotypes about boys’ interests and abilities across grade levels, while girls initially favored stereotypes about girls’ interests and abilities and then switched to boy-favoring stereotypes as they grew older. For engineering, girls and boys consistently favored boys’ stereotypes about interest and ability across all years.
So what does all of this tell us?
Girls and boys start noticing stereotypes about gender-related differences in interest and ability in different STEM fields. These differences may be shaped by the different kinds of experiences that boys and girls have in the classroom. The authors note that it is important to make efforts to reduce gender-related stereotypes when children are young so that they do not necessarily shape children’s interests as they grow older.
Potential Future Directions
It is interesting and important to determine when these stereotypes originate, I also think that it’s important to ask about why they originate. If girls and boys at all ages think, for example, that boys are more interested and better at engineering compared to girls, then why do they think so? Especially for children in the younger age group who have had less experience in STEM learning compared to older students — what factors are shaping these stereotypes? What do children themselves have to say about how strongly entrenched these stereotypes are, and why they hold them?
I also think (related to my own interests) that in understanding the origins of stereotypes in gender-related differences in interest and ability, it’s important to understand how children conceptualize math, science, computer science and engineering. Differences in how students stereotyped boys and girls interests’ and abilities’ suggest that there are differences in how students think of computer science related to other sciences, for example, but exactly how different is computer science from other science? What about engineering? And do students’ understandings of each of these topics differ by gender too?
A related question: Were their relationship between students’ stereotypes about various STEM fields? For example, were boys who endorsed girl-favoring stereotypes for math and science more likely to endorse egalitarian stereotypes for computer science and engineering as well?
A last question that comes to mind here is whether and how students’ beliefs about stereotypes relate to their mindsets about learning each of these fields. If stereotypes about gender-related differences in engineering interest and ability stay constant across age and are present in both boys and girls, what do boys and girls think about the abilities of their own and the other gender in improving their abilities in these fields? What about for math, science and engineering?
While this work by Tang et al (2024) provides quite a bit of information about the origin of gender-related STEM stereotypes and — importantly — that they do exist from early on in life, there is quite a lot more that can be asked in order to reduce the prevalence of these stereotypes, like understanding why second graders with limited experience with STEM are endorsing the belief that boys are better at engineering than girls. We can begin to reduce these stereotypes by asking children about their beliefs and challenging the notion that interest and ability cannot grow, if such beliefs exist.
References
Master, A., Meltzoff, A. N., & Cheryan, S. (2021). Gender stereotypes about interests start early and cause gender disparities in computer science and engineering. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(48), e2100030118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2100030118
Tang, D., Meltzoff, A. N., Cheryan, S., Fan, W., & Master, A. (2024). Longitudinal stability and change across a year in children’s gender stereotypes about four different STEM fields. Developmental Psychology, 60(6), 1109–1130. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001733
