Rethinking the relation between gender and STEM education: a theoretical engagement with a fragmented research terrain

The project aims to investigate how the relation between gender and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education has been and is being theorized within higher education research. It departs from the observation that the research terrain is fragmented.

There is sociologically oriented research well equipped to theorize gender as an aspect of student subjectivity but lacking in its grasp of gendered subject matter specifics; and more didactically oriented research with a better grip on the gendered character of STEM subject matter but that pays less attention to gendered student subjectivities.

The proposed project aims at charting these and related approaches to the gender/STEM education relation.

Methodologically, the four year study can be understood as a theoretical-critical review, and as such has both a critical and constructive ambition.

In a retrospective critical mode, it aims to identify both strengths and weaknesses in earlier approaches and in its constructive mode, it will draw on these findings for theory development.

In addition to suggesting novel ways of conceptualizing the gender/STEM education relation, the study also aims to be helpful for stake holders practically involved in STEM education, who ask themselves to what degree and how they can hope to alter the gender composition of their student population through modifying how or what they teach (i.e. the STEM side of the gender/STEM relation).