Research suggests gender stereotypes play a role in discouraging girls’ STEM interests

An image from the American Institutes for Research shows two girls working on a science project.

A new report from the American Institutes for Research (AIR) suggests that gender stereotypes remain a major barrier to increasing women’s participation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) related fields.

According to AIR analysts, kids start believing that girls are “worse than boys at computing and engineering” by age six. Researchers suggested that this “male-STEM bias” could limit female students’ future aspirations for fast-growing tech fields such as artificial intelligence.

The findings came from a meta-analysis of existing studies spanning more than four decades of research, based on data from 145,000 children across 33 nations. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and comes as Tennessee leaders ramp up state efforts to increase STEM participation through initiatives like Regional Innovation Hubs, where students can gain more access to STEM resources and hands-on learning opportunities.

“For over 25 years, scientists have studied the impact of children’s gender stereotypes about abilities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) domains. These beliefs—that girls and women are predisposed to perform poorly in STEM—could potentially have a compounding, lifelong impact,” a blog post about the findings read. “They could affect girls’ sense of self-efficacy and belonging in STEM learning environments, lower girls’ interest in STEM from a young age, affect their choice of high school and college coursework, and potentially even influence their professional performance and evaluations.”

In addition to these findings, the report suggested that Black children in the U.S. tend to hold weaker male-STEM bias than White children. However, analysts also noted that “math stereotypes are far less gendered than often assumed, especially when compared to the stark male bias for computing and engineering.” The report added that girls are usually viewed as “far superior in verbal domains” like reading and writing by age eight.

The report said educators can use these findings to “target the earliest ages when children begin to subscribe to gender stereotypes about STEM,” in order to increase STEM participation across student groups.

“The early emergence of these biases signals that kids acquire messages about computing and engineering stereotypes at home and in other environments before K‑12 schooling,” David Miller, lead author and senior researcher at AIR, said in a blog post.

“Parents, early childhood educators, and out-of-school-time programs have a key role to play in helping to reshape these narratives.”

For more information on AIR’s findings, visit www.air.org.