Attracting Females to STEM/FIRST

[popnbrown]

Originally Posted by Citrus Dad

I think the issue might be that teenage boys generally don't have a problem asserting themselves in a situation and grabbing all of the time and resources.

I actually think this is a bigger issue than having a continuous program. As I've seen, a lot of girls join FRC teams but slowly drop out of the STEM aspect of FIRST. It attributes to why you see more girls do more of the business development/outreach aspects of teams. There's just a different personality that people develop when "in the shop".

From what I can tell a lot of teams that fare well with girls, also have good mentor-ship. Just like a shy or challenged student, I think for most girls it just takes more/better support or time.

We are going to focus more on allowing more space and time for the girls to get comfortable. It also will be good for the boys to learn better social skills in all settings.

^ great idea but how? Are you guys looking at starting earlier for girls or doing separate training session for them? I find it hard (not with girls) but other shy students to get them to contribute equally during full team meetings.



Another interesting thing that I've heard/would like to read more about (probably will if I remember tonight) is biological differences if there are any or whether the majority of the gender differences comes because of societal norms. It seems as though at a young age, toys are also very gender-biased with girls playing a lot of things that are creative (tea/house) and boys playing with things that seem to be more structured and work a certain way. I'm curious (and I'm sure there are studies) as to why this is. I found this TED Talk interesting (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d77mMXahsME), as a mother she has an interesting perspective of having a baby boy vs. a baby girl.