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It is known that women are less likely to enter technical universities, and once they do, they drop out of school more often than men. Open discrimination against women is less common these days, but hidden prejudice may persist.
American researchers decided to find out how strong such prejudices are. To do this, they interviewed a total of 1500 biology students during one academic term. The anonymous survey involved students from three study groups (A, B and C).
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In group A, students were asked to rate which of their classmates was the best at assimilating the educational material, while the survey was conducted after two exams were passed. In group B, the students took a survey at the very beginning of the course, they had to try to predict which of their classmates would show the best results in their studies. After passing three exams, they were also asked to name the classmates with the best academic performance. Group C took the same surveys as Group B, but they were also given another similar survey after the final exam.
By comparing student grades with the actual performance of their classmates, the researchers found that male students consistently underestimated the abilities of their classmates. For example, in each group, men were named the best 3-4 students, despite the fact that some female students were in no way inferior to them in academic performance. According to the authors of the study, in order to have a chance to be named among the smartest students in the group, a student had to have an average score of at least 3,765 (with a maximum possible 4,0), while 3,0 was enough for male students.
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However, all of the above referred only to the opinions expressed by male students. Female students in the survey did not show any clear prejudice in favor of either gender.
Previous research data shows other examples of implicit discrimination – for example, teachers spend more time interacting and one-on-one with male students, and even more likely to respond to e-mails from male students. Such phenomena undermine women’s confidence and reinforce stereotypes that women do not belong in science and technology and engineering. It is also noteworthy that of all scientific disciplines in biology, women managed to achieve the greatest equality (in the USA, for example, every year more women than men receive degrees in biology). The authors suggest that in other scientific specialties, prejudice against women may be even stronger.
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The researchers emphasize that in order to combat such prejudice, it is not enough to simply increase (through campaigning or other measures) the number of women entering science and technology training. It is necessary to change the social dynamics of the educational process.
Подробнее см. D. Grunspan et al. «Males Under-Estimate Academic Performance of Their Female Peers in Undergraduate Biology Classrooms», PLOS One, February 2016.