Student Concerns
Keeping Girls and Women
in the Sciences
Commentary based on a 1998
National Science Foundation report
"Women, Minorities, and Persons
with Disabilities in Science and Engineering," a 1998 report
of the National Science Foundation (NSF), found that while fourth
and eighth grade girls have similar self-perceptions to boys regarding
achievement in science, women earned only 31 percent of the total
science and engineering doctoral degrees in 1995.
"Some groups – women, minorities, and persons with
disabilities – traditionally have not been fully represented in
science and engineering. Although progress has been made in achievement
and participation of some of these groups, this progress has not
been consistent, and full representation has not been achieved,"
the report concluded.
Clearly, something keeps these scientifically
curious 13 and 14 year-old girls from pursuing science education
to the same degree as their male counterparts. One may reject the
notion that the onset of adolescence alone is responsible. A 1994
study found that girls are more likely to take high school biology
than boys (95 percent vs. 92 percent).
While the NSF report does not address the use
of dissection, science teachers and student advocates alike affirm
that those most likely to seek alternatives to dissection are girls.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that girls who are forced to dissect
– or who experience difficulties in implementing alternatives to
dissection – may reject the possibility of further study in biology
despite any inherent interest.
The following are testimonies submitted to the
Ethical Science and Education Coalition (ESEC)
from female students in Waquoit, Ludlow, Fall River, Walpole, Spencer,
and Hopkinton, Massachusetts, regarding their experience with dissection:
- "[Science] used to be my favorite subject."
- "I never took another class in biology
[after dissection]."
- "I just felt that if I wasn’t involved
in science I wouldn’t have to [dissect]."
- "I know I would never [pursue] a career
that required dissection."
- "I was going to school to be a vet and
[in] the 1st class (biology) I had to dissect a lot
of things … in the future I would have [had] to dissect a cat
and that was where I said ‘no way’ I can’t do this any more."
- "Previously, I’d wanted to be a veterinarian.
Science classes were always my favorite. I chose not to take a
science class my senior year and took computer science instead
of a lab science in college. I was appalled at the disrespect
for life [that was] demonstrated."
Women comprise 51 percent of the U.S. population
and 46 percent of the US work force; however, the NSF report found
that women account for only 22 percent of scientists and
engineers in the work force.
And, according to the American Medical Association’s
Physician Characteristics and Distribution in the United States,
only 22 percent of physicians in the United States
are women.
Passage of
Dissection
Choice Legislation in Massachusetts is
one more way that the educational community can recognize and accommodate
the needs of female science students while offering a comparable
foundation in the sciences. This legislation is one more avenue
to encourage the further pursuit of science education by women.
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