Event Details
On Monday 7th July 2025, Helen Watt will present a seminar on: Gendered Occupational Choices in STEM Fields: Lifelong, Lifewide, STEM-wide.
To attend in person, please join us in Room G05, 55-59 Gordon Square. The seminar will take place on 7 July 2025 at 12.00-13:00pm.
Everyone is welcome to join.
To join online via Zoom, please use this link:
https://ucl.zoom.us/j/92515066042?pwd=d4SZUHqbEApqI0Rv02CnyrxKVrESnJ.1
Meeting ID: 925 1506 6042
Passcode: 785292
Abstract
Despite more than 40 years of research and policy aimed at increasing girls’ and women’s participation in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), gender differences stubbornly persist. Participation in sciences and advanced mathematics at school and university is in decline, Australian participation is not comparable with other nations and our students underperform in major international studies. The 2025 strategy put out by the Australian Office of the Chief Scientist stipulates improved female participation as a key action. Gender differences in STEM enrolments and aspirations prematurely restrict girls’/women’s career options, having ramifications for women’s later wellbeing from economic and psychological perspectives. In this seminar, I will share long-term outcomes from the STEPS Study (www.stepsstudy.org), in which I have been following a longitudinal sample of initially 1,323 youth since grade 7 until recently into their mid-forties (N = 300), to examine whether and how girls/boys are differently motivated in STEM; how motivations matter differently in directing them towards particular purposes and aspirations; how adolescent motivations and aspirations predict educational qualifications and actual careers; and, how educational and occupational choices are made in the context of other life goals and experiences which can promote or diminish young adults’ earlier aspirations.
Funding Acknowledgments:
Australian Research Council FT170100153, Australian Research Fellowship, Australian Research Council DP110100472
Short Bio
Helen M. G. Watt is Professor of Educational Psychology at The University of Sydney, whose interests include STEM motivation and participation, gendered educational and occupational choices, and teacher motivation and development. Her longitudinal programs of research have implications for redressing gender imbalances in STEM fields, and supporting career development of beginning teachers. Helen has edited 8 books and special issues including the Research Handbook on Gender and STEM (Edward Elgar, in devt.); Teacher motivation (Routledge 2014); Global perspectives on teacher motivation (CUP 2017); Gender and occupational outcomes (APA 2008); and is founder and co-Convenor of Network Gender & STEM.
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W: https://www.sydney.edu.au/arts/about/our-people/academic-staff/helen-watt.html