Researchers Mull STEM Gender Gap
Intrigued by the interviews with high school valedictorians that the Raleigh, N.C., News & Observer publishes this time each year, researcher E. Anne York decided to gather up three years’ worth of its stories to look for any gender differences in the aspirations of these highest-achieving local students.
Were boys more likely to strive for careers in engineering and math and to aim for more-selective colleges? Were girls opting for the humanities and the so-called “caring sciences,” such as medicine?
The answer was yes. While the sciences were a popular choice of college majors overall for this select sample of 150 valedictorians from seven counties, the boys were more likely than the girls to say they planned to study math, computer science, or engineering. The girls gravitated to the humanities and social sciences. And, even though the two groups had virtually identical GPAs, the boys were more likely to enroll...
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