‘I’m good at science but I don’t want to be a scientist’: Australian primary school student stereotypes of science and scientists

Abstract

Low participation rates of students studying science at the secondary level are of international concern. One of the under-researched factors influencing low participation rates in the sciences in Australia is primary school student stereotypes concerning science and scientists. We explore how Year 4 (9–10-year-olds) students perceive science, scientists, and a career in science. Data sources included 45 students (m = 29; f = 16) attending six primary schools in diverse contexts in Queensland, Australia. Analysis indicated that when prompted to consider a career in the sciences 13 students aspired to a career in science, 6 students were unsure, and 25 students indicated no aspirations toward an occupation in the sciences. Findings indicated there were no significant differences regarding aspirations towards a science career based on the location of schools with socio-economic status not a salient influence. Categories and sub-categories identified included (i) Stereotypical views of scientists (non-gendered; paraphernalia), and, (ii) Non-Aspirations (difficulties and pressure; science work as physically dangerous). Outcomes provocate research into tensions between the non-gendered language used by students to describe who can be a scientist, on the one hand, and their reluctance to become a scientist due to the masculine nature and dangers of such work, on the other hand.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 38 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.