Among the things I learnt over the last few days was some interesting information about the diversity (or, rather, lack of diversity) of undergraduates taking undergraduate degrees in STEM subjects in the UK universities. For those of you not up on the lingo, `STEM’ is short for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Last year the Institute of Physics produced a report that contains a wealth of statistical information about the demographics of the undergraduate population, from which the following numbers are only a small component.
|
Physics |
Maths |
Chemistry |
Engineering |
|
| Female |
21% |
41% |
44% |
12% |
| BME |
11% |
24% |
20% |
30% |
| Socio-Economic |
37% |
42% |
43% |
51% |
| Non-EU |
5% |
12% |
7% |
32% |
For completeness I should point out that these numbers refer to first-year undergraduates in 2010-11; I have no particular reason to suppose there has been a qualitative change since then. “BME” stands for “Black and Minority Ethnic”, and “Socio-Economic” refers to students whose with parents not employed in managerial or professional positions.
Overall, the figures here at the University of Sussex are roughly in line with, but slightly better than, these national statistics; the proportion of female students in our Physics intake for 2010/11, for example, was 27%.
There are some interesting (and rather disappointing) things to remark. First is that the proportion of Physics students who are female remains low; Physics scores very badly on ethnic diversity too. Mathematics on the other hand seems a much more attractive subject for female students. Notice also how Physics and Chemistry attract a very small proportion of overseas students compared to Engineering.
In summary, therefore, we can see that Physics is a subject largely studied by white middle-class European males. What are we doing wrong?
Despite considerable efforts to promote Physics to a more diverse constituency, the proportion of, e.g., female physics students seems to have been bumping along at around 20% for ages. Interestingly, all the anecdotal evidence suggests that those women who do Physics at University do disproportionately well, in the sense that female students constitute a much larger fraction of First-class graduates than 20%. This strongly suggests that the problem lies at school level; some additional IOP information and discussion on this can be found here.
I’m just passing these figures on for information, as I’m quite often asked about them during, e.g., admissions-related activities. I don’t have any really compelling suggestions, but I would like to invite the blogosphere to comment and/or make suggestions as to promote diversity in STEM disciplines.
Follow @telescoper
In the Dark 