Image copyright Getty The belief in the stereotype that men have more ability in mathematics than women can be absorbed by more girls earlier than previously thought -. and help to eliminate women from fields such as engineering and computer sciences, according to the American psychologist Andrew Meltzoff
Meltzoff, PhD in Oxford, specializes in child development and co -Director of the Institute of Learning and Brain Sciences, University of Washington, in the United States. Their findings about memory and the children imitation capacity in the first months of life revolutionized scientific studies on personality development, brain and human cognitive abilities.
He was in Brazil last July to attend conferences on studies of the brain and a round table of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences on learning the disciplines known by the acronym STEM. – science, technology, engineering and mathematics
Meltzoff spoke about the power cultural stereotypes in children’s learning, the main theme to which its research team has been devoted in recent years.
“In the United States, children get only learn the multiplication and division operations in the 3rd . year but our experiments show that, even before they start learning more complex mathematics, they have ‘caught’ the cultural stereotype that math is for boys “, he said during the conference
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He said the idea that the boys would be better in the natural sciences and the girls in the humanities, contributes to the low proportion of women in university courses related to the area and especially in technology companies.
“At the University of Washington, 46% of the psychology department are women, but only 14% of the department mathematics. At Stanford University is similar, only 3% of the mathematics department are women. Harvard and MIT, the figures are even lower, “he said.
In Brazil, computer engineering courses at major universities in the country had about 11% of women adopted in 2015. For vestibular Meltzoff ., the way to prevent stereotypes about men and women discourage following girls career in STEM disciplines is to maintain an open dialogue with their children from early childhood
Check out the main stretches of the interview:
BBC Brazil – What exactly are cultural stereotypes and what kind of influence they have on people
Andrew Meltzoff – Stereotypes are images we have in our minds, which reflect general beliefs we have about groups of people. They are not necessarily true, but rather beliefs we have about social categories.
It is a natural tendency of human beings form stereotypes about a group. This simplifies our worldview, because we have to think about and respond to each individual in a group, but form a representation that works for the whole group.
This is simple but can have negative effects. One is that we tend to use stereotypes to make predictions about people. I have a stereotype that “men are interested in their careers and women in caring for the family,” for example. But even if some men are interested more in their careers than the family, this is not true for all of them
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BBC Brazil – At what point in our lives these stereotypes begin to be assimilated? And as this happens
Andrew Meltzoff – We are interested in determining the time the stereotype begins and how early in child development we can see the first signs stereotypes. We have a great team working on it at the Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences at the University of Washington.
Most girls and boys think mathematics is something of men. However, they have similar performance in math in school at this age (seven years).
We publish a scientific paper showing that stereotypes about boys and math and reading-related girls begin to appear surprisingly early. Most of the adults retains the stereotype that boys identify more with math and girls with reading.
In a study published in 2011 found that children of the second school year (between six and eight years ) already have this stereotype. Most girls and boys think mathematics is something of men. However, they have similar performance in math in school at this age. The boys did not fare better than girls.
Therefore, we believe that children acquire this belief of the culture that surrounds them. . They absorb this stereotype of the adult culture
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BBC Brazil – Why cultural stereotypes are so important in development ? Children
Meltzoff – They are important because they can influence the way children think over each other. If a child believes that girls are not good at math, it tends to treat the girls as if they did not like numbers, calculators, arithmetic or robots, for example.
If girls are treated well, and there a broad social expectation that mathematics is not for girls, you can begin to internalize it. They can choose mathematical games less often or are less persistent in difficult mathematical problems, because they think that “girls are not good at math” or “math is not for me.”
Over time, this may influence the concept they have of themselves and their aspirations for the future
What if the girl is good at math. – and many are – will have to devote energy and extra time to fight the stereotype other. It is tragic when we restrict the dreams of children about what they can do, what can be and what they can achieve
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BBC Brazil – You said he believed the same stereotype in relation to girls and math exists in Latin America and Europe. ? What do you know about the cultural stereotypes about gender in Brazil
Andrew Meltzoff – We have not made this work with children in Brazil, but we’d love to collaborate with educators and scientists to address this issue, as we are doing in Chile. But if you ask me an opinion, I would say yes, children in Brazil and Latin America also find that math is for boys and reading, for girls.
more research to find out how strong will need is this belief in Latin America and how you can influence their performance in mathematics. The Brazilian government, as well as the US government, want their children to be interested more by the STEM disciplines and have better scores on international tests.
I believe at the moment, is that stereotypes of society start to affect the academic performance of our children very early in the development of them (in elementary school or even earlier). Because of them, the results of Brazil and the US in these tests are not as good as they could be. We need to conduct studies to find out if this is actually true. And if we need to do something about it
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BBC Brazil – But boys and girls demonstrate skills ? different in STEM subjects early
Meltzoff – Many adults find that girls do worse than boys in mathematics, but in most countries, they have higher grades than boys in the early years of school.
The standardized tests in many countries also show that there is no difference in the performances of girls and boys. In some of these countries, in fact, girls do better than boys in exams. This matter is of great scientific interest and is, as you can imagine, very controversial.
Since elementary school, parents can ask children who like more math – if boys or girls. Those who love robots? Those who like to read more? These are simple questions that show stereotypes that children can be absorbing.
When I went to Brazil, this is one of the things that they asked me. There are biological differences in STEM skills? There are cultural forces that push girls and women away from the STEM fields? We need very good objective studies to answer these questions
BBC Brazil -. How do you think these stereotypes influence the number of women in STEM fields? The low levels found in the US are also common in other countries
Meltzoff – Yes, it is known that there are very few women in general in the STEM fields, especially the highly influential industry of computer science. Stereotypes and cultural expectations can lead to fewer women in school or university entering courses that prepare them for careers in computer science.
If women do not enroll in these classes as much as men, We end up with fewer women in the industry. In some STEM fields, we began to lose many women early in their academic careers. I have written a few articles about it. Maybe we can attract more women into computer science to better understand what is keeping it
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BBC Brazil – Why is it important to have more women in STEM fields and especially in computer science
Meltzoff – Two reasons. The first is social equity. Computer science is a field with many lucrative jobs. It’s not fair terms so few women in this field. The second reason is that the field itself will benefit by bringing the most creative minds and bright with other prospects.
If discourage many students to stay in this field, the harm to society. By bringing more women and underrepresented minorities in the field, we can improve the types of games created, the types of software
BBC Brazil -. What kind of work you and your team are developing to recruit more girls to STEM fields? Which countries have expressed an interest in these ideas
Meltzoff – Our research shows that the physical environment is very important to the way women they see computer science. Recently published a study showing that more women are interested in computer science classes if the class is not as geeky .
If the room had posters of Star Trek Spock and statues everywhere, fewer high school girls wanted to be in class than if the room had more neutral items in decoration. Using statistical analyzes, we found that the girls felt that they did not “belong” to the environment more geeky and thought they would have lower grades.
This is interesting because it shows that the decoration of a room can design stereotypes that girls can fend off the course. They moved away because they felt that it corresponded to their identity as a woman.
People both in education and in industry have expressed interest in it. It is relatively inexpensive to change the environment of the classrooms and offices. And you can make a difference.
Spain and Singapore were very interested in ideas for interventions to attract more girls to the math in the early school years. We think that more countries will be interested when we get our test results there
BBC Brazil -. How can parents know which stereotypes about gender your children believe
Meltzoff – Since elementary school, parents can ask children who like more math – if boys or girls. Those who love robots? Those who like to read more? These are simple questions that show stereotypes that children can be absorbing.
Talk to their children about the things in which they believe could open the eyes of parents. And talk about these things is helpful. It makes no sense to ignore these issues. Stereotypes exist. Children realize it. We can not pretend we do not see these stereotypes just do not have to support them!
There are stereotypes in the media, in movies, in books, in stores. Our children grow up exposed to them. But we can teach them not to apply these stereotypes in themselves and not let them limit your dreams and visions of the future.
The stereotypes can be disseminated in society, but do not determine our fate. Parents can help it.
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