Maybe this is part of why women only earn one-fifth of the bachelors’ degrees in engineering, computer science and physics: Girls are as good at math as boys are, but they don’t think they are.

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Thanks so much for reading, sharing, and thinking, Paul. Thorough read.

Bridge to Tomorrow

It’s a shocking and stubborn problem:  Women only earn about 20% of the bachelors’ degrees in engineering, computer science and physics.  These fields account for 19 of the top 25 college majors ranked by salary by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, shown below.

georgetown_top_25-2 redrawn v2.png

So women have little access to our economy’s most lucrative careers.

Why is this happening?  Lara Perez-Felkner, an Assistant Professor in FSU’s Higher Education Program and in the Department of Sociology, has the best answer I’ve seen.  Many high school girls with strong math skills don’t believe they are good at math.  And that belief keeps them from choosing college majors in engineering, computer science and physics.

Lara’s results were published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.  FSU has a news release here.  The paper was coauthored by Lara’s students Samantha Nix and Kirby Thomas.

The primary result is illustrated…

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Author: perezfelkner

Dr. Lara Perez-Felkner is an Associate Professor of Higher Education and Sociology in the Higher Education Program within the College of Education at Florida State University. She is also an Affiliated Faculty member in the Department of Sociology, and Senior Research Associate with FSU’s Center for Postsecondary Success. Her research uses developmental and sociological perspectives to examine how young people’s social contexts influence their college and career outcomes. She focuses on the mechanisms that shape entry into and persistence in institutions and fields in which they have traditionally been underrepresented. In particular, she investigates racial-ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic disparities in post-secondary educational attainment and entry to scientific career fields.