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Boosting the number of students from underrepresented groups in physics

Programmes from high school through to graduate school are aiming to keep more women and people from underrepresented groups in the physical sciences.
  1. Nicola Jones

    1. Nicola Jones is a freelance journalist based in Pemberton, British Columbia, Canada.

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At Reed College in Portland, Oregon, a young woman of colour — a first-year student interested in physics — made an appointment to see Mary James, the college’s dean for institutional diversity. “She said: ‘I heard there’s an African American physicist on campus and I just wanted to meet you’,” says James. In their conversation, the student recalled standing at the blackboard the previous week to work on a problem and suddenly realizing that all her group partners were white men. She thought that if she failed they would think that women of colour couldn’t hack it. “She said: ‘I knew I shouldn’t be thinking that. But I couldn’t help it.’ It was a classic stereotype threat,” says James, who handed the student a book from her bookshelf on the phenomenon. “This is a really powerful thing, and it really impedes performance.”

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Nature 562, S12-S14 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-06834-y

This article is part of Nature Outlook: Science and technology education, an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content.

References

  1. Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering (National Science Foundation, 2017).

  2. Ivie, R. Beyond Representation: Data to Improve the Situation of Women and Minorities in Physics and Astronomy (American Institute of Physics, 2018).

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