WLA 2018 Report - Draft 1-2

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Overall Gender Landscape at ALU The ALU student body is gender diverse. ALU’s female students, who were considered in this investigation, comprise of 41% of the student body. However, a further analysis of the split between majors indicates that females are underrepresented in the STEM majors (Computer Science and Engineering). On the other hand, Social Sciences has the highest composition of female students (68%)despite being the degree with the lowest uptake (15.9%) among ALU students in general. Through our focus groups, it was revealed that female students are more likely to face discouragement from their families when opting to study a STEM degree. “My dad is an Engineer and he told me that women should not study engineering. He said he, himself wouldn’t even hire a female engineer. I decided to study it anyway, but I didn’t tell him until a year later.” -Female STEM student at ALU Furthermore, female students expressed hesitating when selecting a STEM degree as they were unsure of their ability to succeed. What we found to be invaluable was female students receiving encouragement to study a STEM degree either from a faculty member or a professional in the field, particularly a female. 8
Notably, it was revealed that in classes where one gender is the significant minority, that gender’s learning experience is compromised. Male students in Social Sciences cited feeling they could not speak freely and females in Computer Science cited feeling like there was a “boys club” which they could not access. Thus, ALU can look into intentionally improving gender balance in degree programs through degree info sessions which exhibit both males and females in the profession. Research has found that students are more likely to feel confident pursuing a certain major when they have seen examples of people of their gender succeeding in that major. “Social Science major has 6 guys and 21 female students. In that space , what happens is that as a male, we had to think more critically about what we have to say, what implicit biases we have and etc.But this impedes my learning because there will be a backlash for almost every opinion I express in class “ - Male Social Sciences Student 9
Page 2 and 3: A N f WLA’ F WLA was founded by 3
Page 4 and 5: Executive summary 5 Gender landscap
Page 6 and 7: Executive Summary The McKinsey Glob
Page 10 and 11: Brief History of State of African W
Page 12 and 13: Female students at ALU are less con
Page 14 and 15: Male students are more comfortable
Page 16 and 17: No gender disparity in risk-taking
Page 18 and 19: Unconscious bias are prevalent and
Page 20 and 21: In teams, females take support role
Page 22 and 23: Female students believe they don’
Page 24 and 25: Methodology The report is grounded
Page 26 and 27: 3 Female Students predominantly in
Page 28 and 29: 28

WLA 2018 Report - Draft 1-2

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