FACTORS GENDER GAP IN THE STEM SECTOR IN PRE AND UNIVERSITY
STUDIES OF EUROPE ASSOCIATED WITH ETHNIC FACTORS
Sonia Verdugo-Castro, María Cruz Sánchez Gómez and Alicia García-Holgado
GRIAL Research Group, University of Salamanca
The ground-breaking current project builds on the latent gender gap in the education sector in the areas of Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
It´s necessary to look for the origin of the gender gap since it is a phenomenon due to a social construct and not
something innate to the person. The professional vocation of the person is not determined by the sex of the
individual but is conditioned by the social parameters that we build. Some of these conditioning constructs are the
roles, marked by the society and the culture of each place.
Thus, reference can be made to González-González, et al. [1] when they indicate that: "In the 1980s, women
represented a peak of between 35 and 40 percent of the computing and information technology (IT) workforce in
the United States by 2011, that percentage dropped to about 25 percent, according to National Center for Women and
Information Technology (NCWIT). We can also cite as an example the Spanish university system, where according to
the report published by the Ministry of Education [2], Culture and Sport, 54% of university students are women, In
fact, in most of the degrees women are the majority, but if we focus on engineering and architectural studies, the
number of women drops to a quarter of all the students, except for industrial design where there is a greater
presence of women. In this regard, women can be considered a minority within the context of STEM studies due to
their lack of presence, not as minorities in society".
studies show the low representation of women in studies and professions that have been socially masculinized.
Reference can be made to Strachan et al. [3] when they state that: "The situation in many countries in Europe and
elsewhere are equally stark. In Japan, females represent about 2% of all engineers and in Canada, 13.7%. In India,
about 32% earned degrees in engineering and technology but overall female participation in the workforce dropped
from 37% in 2005 to 28% 2016. Across the European Union, the total percentage of females in high technology
manufacturing and services roles is about 32%. In the UK, only 18% of engineering, technology and computer science
undergraduates in 2015-2016 were female and less than 10% of professional engineers were female in 2016 with a
minor increase to 11% in 2017”.
Finally, Paderewski et al.[4] indicate the importance of "carrying out studies that highlight the main barriers or
problems that prevent women from choosing a technical career, carrying out mentoring programmes, improving the
visibility of references in the academic, business or labour world for women with technical training and carrying out
courses, conferences or events to explain their role as engineers".
This project is completely innovative, as it will be a study never performed before, with a very specific methodology.
Motivations will be linked to ethnic factors, something that has not been applied yet, focusing especially on the
changes that occur between the ages of 16 and 30 in the most academic sense of the term.
INTRODUCTION AND STATE-OF-THE-ART
The hypothesis of the project is based on the existing and latent feminization at the different levels of studies,
branches of knowledge and specific degrees. Special consideration must be given to the cultural characteristics of
the individual and the social conception in relation to the masculinized and feminized professions in order to
implement the Research Plan effectively and to be able to respond to the gender gap. Despite the fact that we are in
the society of globalization, mainly in the political, economic and socio-cultural frameworks, the hypothesis states
that the culture of the individual, especially in the area of gender roles, can become highly conditioning for the
gender gap.
Based on the hypothesis formulated previously, the general objectives of the thesis are the following:
• To integrate the recipients, their motivations, preferences and interests in the research process.
• To diagnose in the European educational framework the current situation in the STEM sector and its causality, in
order to argue the decision making and possible action measures, such as establishing new channels of effective and
real equality in the representation of both sexes in this framework.
In order to achieve these objectives, a set of specific objectives have been defined, which are described below:
• To establish contact networks with educational centres with different EQF-MEC levels, which can transfer their
reality and with young students with heterogeneous profiles.
• To carry out fieldwork via the research to assess the evolution of young people throughout the different stages of
their studies, thus creating a longitudinal cohort study with the same students from high school to university
education and evaluate the gender indicators in decision made that are produced in the formative stages of high
school, vocational training and university, with an integral approach to gender mainstreaming.
Population and Sample:
The population will be students from educational centres of different EQF-MEC levels, within the regional, national
and European environments. The sample will be representative and random, according to the formula of Cea
D'Ancona [5] for the quantitative study and will be representative at the level of speeches-signified (theoretical
sampling) for the qualitative study [6].
Methodology, method and techniques:
The thesis project is a methodologically mixed study, with a quantitative and qualitative part.
The research method will be sequential mixed exploratory. The design is characterized by a first stage where
quantitative data are collected and analysed, followed by another stage where qualitative data are collected and
evaluated.
The techniques used must be reliable and valid. The techniques for collecting information about cultural protective
factors, inequality, gender stereotypes, discriminatory practices, socio-educational processes, etc., will be collected
and analysed with documents, Likert scale questionnaires, life histories with case studies (longitudinal study),
interviews, and discussion groups. One of the most outstanding techniques will be the focus group, which will allow
us to know the opinions and feelings of the young participants in the process. In addition, a technique that will allow
the approach to the students will be the Delphi method, which will be used in the contact phase with the centres. The
techniques used to offer reliability and validity will be: exploratory and confirmatory factorial analysis for the
questionnaire and the application of process guides and rubrics for the qualitative study.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY
Finally, from the current thesis Project, it is concluded that as the literature itself shows and as the studies establish,
there is a field of research, analysis, programming and intervention, which is the gender gap that has been
established within the STEM education sector.
It is important that this reality be approached not only from the Universities, but also as it has been seen from other
entities and multinationals. To this aim, it is especially important not to forget some aspects, such as the fact that
within universities, women are the ones who reach the highest rates of graduates, high rates of performance and
success, and they are also the ones who drop out of university studies the least.
Therefore, the STEM sector is an important area for women, since they are under-represented. This is due to a series
of social constructs that have been generated gradually, and that is why it is especially important to study the
relationship between the gender gap and the culture. To analyse this aspect, the racial and ethnic origin of the person
may be key.
This research work has been carried out within the University of Salamanca PhD Programme on Education in the
Knowledge Society scope (http://knowledgesociety.usal.es) [7-9] and was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de
Ciencia, Inovación y Universidades under a FPU fellowship (FPU017/01252).
REFERENCES
DISSERTATION STATUS
CONCLUSIONS AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The research with the methodology already indicated will be developed in three main blocks: preparation, research
and evaluation. Each of these blocks will have phases which will define the moment of the analysis of the project.
[1] C. González-González et al. 2018. Gender and Engineering: Developing Actions to Encourage Women in
Tech. 2018 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON). 2088–2093.
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mecd/areas-educacion/ universidades/estadisticas-informes/datos-cifras/Datos-y-Cifras-del- SUE-Curso-
2014-2015.pdf.
[3] R. Strachan et al. 2018. Women in Engineering: Addressing the Gender Gap, Exploring Trust and our
Unconscious Bias. 2018 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON). 2094–2099.
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Technology (II). 319–326.
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