Gendered pathways into the post-secondary study of science

While concerns about declining interest in science education and employment often appear in educational literature (Ainley & Ainley 2011; Anlezark et al. 2008), less attention is usually devoted to the gender segregation of science engagement.1 To shed more light on this issue, this paper explores gendered patterns in the uptake of science school subjects and in adolescent career preferences. Such gendered patterns may have serious consequences, because strong concentrations of men and women in particular niches of science can adversely affect not only optimal talent utilisation but also human creativity and productivity. Moreover, if science participation continues to be differentiated by gender, young people who value gender egalitarianism may turn away from prospective science careers. Therefore, an examination of why young men and women choose different fields of science is important for achieving a better understanding of the trends in overall science participation. Arguably, the last two decades have seen more interest among policy-makers and social scientists in the horizontal (that is, field-related) segregation by gender that affects the education and labour market choices made by young people (Barone 2011; Charles & Bradley 2009; Gerber & Cheung 2008). Recent comparative and country-specific literature reports that women are concentrated in biology, medicine, environmental studies and similar fields, while men continue to dominate the mathematical and physical sciences as well as computing and engineering (Gerber & Cheung 2008; Hill, Corbett & Rose 2010; OECD 2006; Xie & Shauman 2003). This has also been the case in Australia, where Fullarton and Ainley (2000) singled out gender as the strongest predictor of science subject choices among Year 12 students