Women in STEM: A Research Guide

This guide provides sources and research strategies for critical analysis of women in STEM fields. 

Articles

Bairoh, S. (2023). The gender(ed) gap(s) in STEM: Explaining the persistent underrepresentation of women in STEM careers. Hanken School of Economics.

Lathifa, Z. (2023). Factors contributing to the underrepresentation of women and minority students in STEM fields. Sage Science Review of Educational Technology, 6(1), 39-47.

Verdugo-Castro, S., García-Holgado, A., & Sánchez-Gómez, M. C. (2022). The gender gap in higher STEM studies: A systematic literature review. Heliyon, 8(8), e10300-e10300. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e10300

Avolio, B., Chávez, J., & Vílchez-Román, C. (2020). Factors that contribute to the underrepresentation of women in science careers worldwide: A literature review. Social Psychology of Education, 23(3), 773-794. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-020-09558-y

 Chan, E., Di, D., & Ecklund, E. H. (2024). Scientists explain the underrepresentation of women in physics compared to biology in four national contexts. Gender, Work, and Organization, 31(2), 399-418. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.13076

Kahn, S., & Ginther, D. (2017). Women and STEM. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. doi: 10.3386/w23525

 Pollack, E. (October 6, 2013). Can you spot the real outlier? New York Times Magazine, 30-35, 44-46. (Originally published online by the New York Times as "Why are There Still So Few Women in Science?" on October 3, 2013 link)

Stoet, G., & Geary, D. C. (2018). The gender-equality paradox in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. Psychological Science, 29, 581–593. doi:10.1177/0956797617741719

Buse, K. (2018). Women's under-representation in engineering and computing: Fresh perspectives on a complex problem. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 595. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00595 

Ceci, S.J., & Williams, W.M. (2010). Understanding current causes of women's underrepresentation in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(8), 3157-3162. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1014871108


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Books

Watch/Listen

Why  Aren't there More Women in Science? (2018)
From Science Focus magazine.

  • Dr Suzie Imber – Associate professor of planetary science at the University of Leicester. 
  • Angela Saini – Award-winning science journalist who wrote Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong.
  • Dr Aoife Hunt – Associate director and mathematician at Movement Strategies, which is a company that specialises in crowd flow planning.
  • Dr Jess Wade – Physicist at Imperial College London. Winner of the Daphne Jackson prize from the Institute of Physics.