Supporting Girls’ and Women’s STEM Choices
Strand 1 of the Women in STEM Action Plan set out two research tasks to deepen our understanding of the women in STEM ecosystem and to identify key lessons for policy and strategic programmes to tackle under-representation in Northern Ireland:
- Detailed desk research into the known challenges faced by other economies seeking to increase the number of women in STEM
- Detailed desk research to develop our knowledge of the influences on girls from 0-5 and through the transition into primary school
This policy insights paper sets out the findings from these two pieces of research and identifies the key lessons and policy recommendations to tackle under-representation and to increase the number of women in the In Demand STEM workforce.
The overall findings of the research are that:
- The Department for the Economy Women in STEM Steering Group’s understanding of the women in STEM ecosystem is sophisticated and at the forefront of policy thinking.
- The challenges that Northern Ireland faces – and its proposed approach to solving them – are common to many countries in the west.
- These challenges are systemic. There is no magic bullet that will fix the under-representation of girls and women in STEM. Facilitating girls’ pathways into STEM will require continuous and multiple interventions that start at an early age and address personal as well as social factors.
- Given the systemic nature of the challenge, seeking to identify a single underpinning factor risks oversimplifying the issue. Notwithstanding that, cultural influences appear to be particularly significant in girls’ choices.
- Girls and boys perform equally well in STEM subjects in early years.
- Differences in performance and self-belief begin to appear from age 6 and then increase throughout school.
- The boundary between pre-school and primary school and the transition through primary are critical for fixing the pipeline. Teachers’ understanding of – and comfort working with – STEM concepts is key.
