Equity Imbalance in Science Classes

According to Rutherford and Ahlgren (1990), teachers should ensure that all students have confidence in learning science and are comfortable using laboratory tools:

"Teachers should recognize that for many students, the learning of mathematics and science involves feelings of severe anxiety and fear of failure. No doubt this results partly from what is taught and the way it is taught, and partly from attitudes picked up incidentally very early in schooling from parents and teachers who are themselves ill at ease with science and mathematics. Far from dismissing math and science anxiety as groundless, though, teachers should assure students that they understand the problem and will work with them to overcome it. Teachers can take such measures as the following:

Teachers should make sure that students have some sense of success in learning science and mathematics, and they should de-emphasize getting all the right answers as being the main criterion of success. After all, science itself, as Alfred North Whitehead said, is never quite right. Understanding anything is never absolute, and it takes many forms. Accordingly, teachers should strive to make all students--particularly the less-confident ones--aware of their progress and should encourage them to continue studying.

Many students are fearful of using laboratory instruments and other tools. This fear may result primarily from the lack of opportunity many of them have to become familiar with tools in safe circumstances. Girls in particular suffer from the mistaken notion that boys are naturally more adept at using tools. Starting in the earliest grades, all students should gradually gain familiarity with tools and the proper use of tools. By the time they finish school, all students should have had supervised experience with common hand tools, soldering irons, electrical meters, drafting tools, optical and sound equipment, calculators and computers.

Because the scientific and engineering professions have been predominantly male and white, female and minority students could easily get the impression that these fields are beyond them or are otherwise unsuited to them. This debilitating perception--all too often reinforced by the environment outside the school--will persist unless teachers actively work to turn it around. Teachers should select learning materials that illustrate the contributions of women and minorities, bring in role models, and make it clear to female and minority students that they are expected to study the same subjects at the same level as everyone else and to perform as well." (p. 192)

References