The presence of women in scientific and technical careers is still limited. The young people do not feel identified with the figure of the scientific investigator, isolated from the world and without social skills and the few related females in the textbooks do not help either that the girls choose a few studies that look very difficult and with questionable job prospects.
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sexism in mathematics, why they do not choose technical careers?
The Institut Lluís Vives de Valencia working in this field and for a week has welcomed students from Portugal and Italy within the european programme Erasmus+ in order to encourage scientific vocations among the young people, giving them relating to the move away from the stereotypes that are associated with careers in science and technology,
And all in search of the science of meat and bone, nearby and accessible is were this week to the Faculty of Physical Sciences of the University of Valencia, where the professor María Jesús Hernández taught them in his laboratory “the magic of Physics”. The teacher gives them instructions to calculate the acceleration of gravity, something that happens when you get to an attraction of free fall at Port Adventure, or Disney.
“you Have to measure, repeat and try again; make sure it has not been a fluke. That is what makes always a scientist,” insists the teacher to foreign students. In the next table there is a Geiger counter, which can measure the radioactivity, and objects that make the lab a perfect stage for optical illusions, experiments with vapour of alcohol or experiments of friction with a stool and weights. It is the most fun part of Physics.
“We’ve noticed that there comes a time when the girls are leaving science subjects by the image of difficulty of the science”, he stresses, Sira Muñoz, professor and coordinator of international programs at the IES Lluís Vives. “People don’t have a real picture of what science is, it seems complicated. There are girls that when they tell their parents that they are going to study a technical career or science, these are discouraged; they say that to seek anything else.”
expand photo Students and teachers measure the acceleration of gravity. M. A. POLO
Muñoz reflects on the objectives of the european programme: “What is the stereotype of a scientist? If the only reference of women in science for the girls of today are Marie Curie, the first woman Nobel prize, they think they will never and desanimarán. But if you look at a teacher as María Jesús Hernández, who is a mother, has been studying the Physical, he works in it and Tipobet is a scientic, will have a closer example. We have to try to bring the image of the science or not engage in it,” he emphasizes.
Laura, 15 years old, originally from Pescara (Italy) and a student of the THAT, it is one of the students participating in the Erasmus+. Do not know yet what to study more: “First we have to see everything to choose well. I think that science is difficult, but also interesting,” he says in one of the breaks of the visit to the university campus of Burjassot.
With 12-year-old Maria, a student of Lamego (Portugal), sees this trip to Valencia as “an incredible experience to contact with people from other countries, other cultures, and stepping outside of our comfort zone, of our country.” “I am not very clear that I will study more but I really like astronomy, the universe,” he says on the way to the astronomical observatory of the campus.
According to Unesco data, only 28% of the scientific researchers in the world are women and only one out of every five countries between Western Europe and the united States has achieved gender parity in the research. While there are careers in science peer-to-peer or feminized, such as Chemistry, Medicine, Biology, Nursing, and Math, are missing so very marked in other subjects such as Physics, Computer science and engineering of all kinds.
expand photo Sira Muñoz, coordinator of international programs at the IES Lluís Vives, with the students.
“Since childhood educates us with various expectations, when it should not be so because we all have various talents,” said Milagros Sainz, director of the research group GenTIC of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and coordinator of the book Is looking for engineers, physical, and technologists, in an interview published by THE COUNTRY in the past month of August.
This program in particular not only serves to bring students to the science, but also to show the european dimension, multicultural and multilingual is. “Conducive to understanding and dialogue and promotes the democratic values of europe”, underlines the coordinator.
After this first visit will take place two more cities of Pescara in Italy and Lamego in Portugal during the present academic year, and three more course to come. The project includes the direct participation of the directorate of the centres of education, 18 teachers and 96 pupils and their families, as well as an indirect impact estimated at 600 students.
