Despite progress, STEM faces gender, diversity gaps
Ask some of the fifth-grade girls at Harvard Elementary School about coding and STEM and, in between maneuvering a robot they programmed to demonstrate hydrodynamics, this is what they say:
Sarah Ramos, 10: “It teaches me to problem-solve.”
Hannah Horwath, 11: “It really teaches us metaphorical lessons like trial and error and how to persist.”
Emarie DiBella, 11: “It’s awesome and really fun.”
But then, as the girls debate how to position the robot to carry out a series of tasks, they follow up with this:
“One of the things I’ve realized is that a lot of girls don’t do stuff like this,” Emarie said.
Sarah nodded.
“I’ve talked to many people about my interest in coding and STEM,” Sarah added, “and they always say, ‘that’s not something girls usually do.’ I always say, ‘I just want to be different and try it.’ ”
The girls attending the Houston ISD STEM magnet school, where a poster in the hallway proclaims “Sushi rolls, not gender roles,” are hitting upon a stubborn problem in STEM, short for science, technology, engineering and math.
Despite efforts to close the gender gap, women and girls remain underrepresented in STEM fields and in college STEM programs. Women make up half the college-educated labor pool in the U.S., but only 29 percent of the STEM workforce.