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In many educational policy and practice systems, ‘girls into STEM’ initiatives are presented as something undisputedly good. For example, coding clubs, scholarships and girls-only camps that aim to close gender gaps in certain areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). While increased opportunities for girls may be needed in particular STEM disciplines or certain societal demographics, a critical question is often overlooked: What assumptions are we making about girls, and about STEM itself, when we create these initiatives?

Girls as ‘uninterested’ in STEM

One frequently repeated explanation for girls’ underrepresentation is that girls are ‘less interested’ (Watson et al., 2023) and therefore, need ‘fixing’. Interest is often seen as a stable trait that girls are believed to lack and need to develop (Lutterberger et al., 2019). Boys, by contrast, are rarely described as insufficiently interested. Their participation is typically taken for granted (Master et al., 2023). Research suggests, however, that interest develops through exposure, recognition and opportunity, and is shaped by cultural norms and access to activities that allow curiosity to grow (Holmegaard & Archer, 2022). When girls have not had equal access to STEM, calling them ‘uninterested’ can mistake limited or hindered opportunity for a lack of preference. This shifts attention towards boosting girls’ motivation rather than examining how access, exposure and expectations shape who participates in the first place.

‘When girls have not had equal access to STEM, calling them “uninterested” can mistake limited or hindered opportunity for a lack of preference.’

Girls’ encounters with STEM

Expectations from STEM initiative organisers may also shape girls’ encounters with STEM by influencing how scientific content is presented to them. For example, in one experimental study, trainee teachers preparing a science lesson for a hypothetical eight-year-old used less specialised scientific language and provided less detailed explanations when they believed the pupil was a girl, despite identical learning goals (Newall et al., 2018), indicating that gendered assumptions can influence how STEM content is presented. For girls who do enter STEM initiatives, participation may therefore involve negotiating these lowered expectations (assuming such expectations are explicit) or being positioned as exceptional (Godec et al., 2024). Neither framing grants the legitimacy typically given to boys.

The gendered branding of STEM

Contemporary initiatives sometimes reinforce this difference through gendered branding. Movements such as ‘Girls in STEM’ or campaigns such as ‘Science: it’s a girl thing!’ draw on popular-culture aesthetics. While intended to signal empowerment, this suggests that to draw girls into STEM, ‘girlification’ is required. Presenting STEM through girl-modified approaches may imply that competence and femininity sit in tension, rather than naturally harmonising. Corneliussen (2024) similarly argues that many ‘girls into IT’ initiatives oscillate between two narratives: girls as lacking confidence and in need of support, or girls as resilient individuals who succeed through exceptional effort. Both positions individualise structural issues and leave institutional cultures largely unexamined, leading to the view that these issues are rooted in girls’ attitudes, confidence or adaptability rather than in the norms, practices and exclusionary assumptions built into STEM environments. Because of this, such initiatives might seem to increase participation on the surface, but they often leave the deeper, gendered structures of STEM unchanged.

These narratives also shape how participation is valued and rewarded. Scholarships and high-profile programmes can open doors, but they also lend symbolic weight to participation. When involvement is linked to prestige or framed as proof of progress, girls may feel encouraged to remain even if their interests shift. However, if girls cannot freely reconsider their choices, participation cannot be fully voluntary. This leads us back to the original question: Are we fixing girls or fixing STEM? Without directly addressing that distinction, initiatives may help increase statistics while leaving the underlying conditions unchanged.

References

Corneliussen, H. (2024). Reconstructions of gender and information technology: Women doing IT for themselves. Springer.

Godec, S., Archer, L., Moote, J., Watson, E., DeWitt, J., Henderson, M., & Francis, B. (2024). A missing piece of the puzzle? Exploring whether science capital and STEM identity are associated with STEM study at university. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 22(7), 1615–1636.

Holmegaard, H. T., & Archer, L. (2022). Science identities: Theory, method and research. Springer.

Luttenberger, S., Steinlechner, P., Ertl, B., & Paechter, M. (2019). It takes more than one swallow to make a summer: Measures to foster girls’ and women’s pathways into STEM. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1844.

Master, A., Tang, D., Forsythe, D., Alexander, T. M., Cheryan, S., & Meltzoff, A. N. (2023). Gender equity and motivational readiness for computational thinking in early childhood. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 64, 242–254.

Newall, C., Gonsalkorale, K., Walker, E., Forbes, G. A., Highfield, K., & Sweller, N. (2018). Science education: Adult biases because of the child’s gender and gender stereotypicality. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 55, 30–41.

Watson, P. W. S. J., Rubie-Davies, C. M., & Ertl, B. (Eds.). (2023). The Routledge international handbook of gender beliefs, stereotype threat, and teacher expectations. Routledge. ��