To the question, do you like science classes? According to experts, the response is positive in young children, but this interest declines as they age, considering science classes unattractive, boring, difficult and without application to daily life, students say. By gender, girls have more positive attitudes towards science in primary school, but from secondary school this enthusiasm declines with a greater impact on them. Looking for an answer, researchers like Luedicke (2012) show the importance of teachers’ expectations and the “vulnerability to stereotypes” that socially establishes few abilities in girls for science subjects, including physics, chemistry, engineering, mathematics, etc. anxiety and low self-esteem.
On February 11, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science was celebrated, established in 2016 by the UN, to promote a space that raises awareness and calls for full and equitable participation in science for women and girls.
In various parts of the world, female university enrollment has increased, as in UNAM in 2015 by 50.7% in women, but areas such as mechanical and electrical engineering had 9 female students for every 100 students and in pedagogy for every 100 students there were 480 women . A difference that denotes the preference of women for areas other than science.
This attitude towards science studies has a history that starts from the guidance and stimuli that students receive in the basic and family cycles, adding the additional disadvantage that the intellectual capacity of women refers to the formation of the family and to fulfill a role unfavorable to intellectual development and recognition. In Mexico in 2015 (INEGI) reported 19.4 million girls and adolescents, of which 0.7 percent are still illiterate and more than one and a half million are out of upper secondary education. How to make them scientific? We require an education with gender parity, teacher training to teach science, stimulate the creativity, imagination and confidence of girls in their intellect and value as people. We need to do it as a team, parents, teachers and society. Let’s also start by recognizing the valuable Mexican scientists that we have as a great example and reference.
