Why so few choose physics: An alternative explanation for the leaky pipeline

President Lawrence Summers remarks were made during a luncheon presentation prepared for a two-day symposium “Diversifying the Science and Engineering Workforce” hosted by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, 14 January, 2005.

The view that a woman’s biology makes her unfit for physics has a rich but relatively modern history. For in-depth discussion of the systematic exclusion of women and “feminine” values from both the institutions of science and the scientific enterprise see: Evelyn Fox-Keller, Reflections on Gender and Science (Yale U.P., New Haven, 1985); Linda Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science (Harvard U.P., Cambridge, MA, 1989), pp. 119–156. The search for innate biological differences between the sexes, differences that would provide a scientific rationale for the exclusion of women from science, has been discussed broadly for years. See Steven J. Gould, The Mismeasure of Man (Norton, New York, 1996); Linda Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex? Women in the Origins of Modern Science (Harvard U.P., Cambridge, MA, 1989); Margaret Wertheim, Pythagoras’ Trousers: God, Physics, and the Gender Wars (Times Books, New York, 1995). Indeed, when Vivian Gornick interviewed Nuclear physicist I. I. Rabi, in 1982 at the age of 84, Rabi explained to Gornick that women are “temperamentally unsuited to science,” and confided that it is a matter of the nervous system. “It’s simply different. It makes it difficult for them to stay with the thing. I’m afraid there’s no use quarreling with it, that’s the way it is. Women may go into science, and they will do well enough, but they will never do great science.” Vivian Gornick, Women In Science (Touchstone, New York, 1990), p. 36.

Michael

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David C. Geary, Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences (American Psychological Association, 1998).

Yu. Xie and Kimberlee A. Shauman, Women in Science: Career Processes and Outcomes (Harvard U.P., Cambridge, 2003).

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B. Schaer, C. Pancake, J. Aull, and C. Curtis, “Gender and race difference in achievement of academic subjects and persistence in freshmen engineering students,” paper presented at the Mid-south Education Research Organization, New Orleans, LA, 1990.

See K. J. Armstrong, “Women in science and mathematics: First year perceptions of college learning experiences on the effect of persistence,” doctoral dissertation, Boston College, 1996 (unpublished); A. W. Astin and H. S. Astin, “Undergraduate science education: The impact of different college environments on the education pipeline in the sciences,” Los Angeles: Higher Education Research Initiative, 1991; V. Lee, “Identifying potential scientists and engineers: An analysis of the high-school-college transition,” (Research/Technical) Washington, DC, Congress of the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, 1987; Samson Madera Nashon, “The status of Physics 12 in BC: Reflections from UBC science teacher candidates,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Association of Research in Science Teaching, PA, 23–26 March, 2003; E. Seymour and N. M. Hewitt, Talking About Leaving: Why Undergraduates Leave the Sciences (Westview, Boulder, CO, 1997); Sheila Tobias, They’re Not Dumb, They’re Different: Stalking the Second Tier (Research Corporation, Tuscon, AZ, 1990).

Sheila Tobias, in They’re Not Dumb. They’re Different (Research Corporation, Tuscon, AZ, 1990), reports on the findings of a NSF study that uses course enrollment patterns to predict the numbers of students earning degrees in science and engineering. According to that study, of 750 000 high school students who express an interest in science as sophomores, only 590 000 would still have been “interested” during their senior high school year. And of these, only 340 000 would still be committed after a first taste of college science as freshmen, a drop-off of 40%. Attrition during college years would find that only 206 000 would have actually graduated in science and engineering at the end of the senior year, another 40% loss. And of these baccalaureates, only 61 000 would have gone on to graduate school in science and engineering, and 9700 completed the Ph.D. The term “shortfall” is credited to Eric Bloch, director of the National Science Foundation. The projected shortfall all but evaporated with the influx of students from other countries. However, researchers Patrick Mulvey and Starr Nicholson at the American Institute of Physics report that “after a decade of decline, undergraduate degree production has been experiencing significant increases in the classes of 2000 and 2001.” American Institute of Physics, Statistical Research Center, College Park, MD (AIP Publ. No. R-151.39, August 2003).

Rachel Ivie and Kim Nies Ray, “Women in physics and astronomy, 2005,” American Institute of Physics Report, Statistical Research Center, College Park, MD (AIP Publ. No. R-430.02, February 2005).

David Layzer, the Donald Menzel Professor of Astrophysics at Harvard, has noted the same phenomenon. In a piece titled “Why women (and men) give up on science,” (On Teaching and Learning, a journal of the Derek Bok Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, May 1992, pp. 67–77.) Layzer observed: “Many students who fall in love with science and math at an early age fall out of love with them in high school or college.” He also said, “the best-selling introductory college-level math and science textbooks not only simplify their subject matter. They misrepresent [the discipline] in ways that repel the brightest and most curious students.” (Italics in original).

Fiona Hughes-McDonnell, “Understanding high school physics students’ perspectives of their classroom experiences and their images of physics and physicists: A pilot study,” Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 1996 (unpublished).

In a sample such as this it is difficult, if not unreasonable, to make such a claim. But nonetheless, I find that it is the girls who talk about the desire to invent, create and build, and who, in particular, seem to want to make their own interpretations of the data.

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Fiona Hughes-McDonnell, “Circuits and pathways of understanding: ‘I can’t believe we’re figuring out this stuff,”’ doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 2000 (unpublished).

Gerhard Sonnert, “Women in science and engineering: Advances, challenges, and solutions,” in Women in Science and Engineering: Choices for Success, edited by Cecily Cannan Selby (Annals of New York Academy of Sciences, New York, 1999), pp. 34–57, 869.