Building the future of Latin America: Engaging women into STEM

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Building the future of Latin America: engaging women into STEM Funding: European Union. ERASMUS + Capacity-building in Higher Education Call for proposals EAC/A05/2017 Project type: European Coordinator: University of Salamanca Project leader: Francisco J. García Peñalvo Partners: Universidad del Norte Oulu University Politecnico di Torino Technological University Dublin Nothern Regional College Tecnológico de Monterrey Universidad de Guadalajara Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica Universidad de Costa Rica Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja Universidad Técnica del Norte Reference: 598923-EPP-1-2018-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP Time: 15/01/2019 to 14/01/2022 Budget: 862.268€ Abstract: The participation of Women in STEM in the Latin-America region is a very complex problem in which necessarily call for actions from different actors, such as governments, private sector, families, as well the different levels of education (since childhood to higher education). In order to make concrete contribution, Higher Education Institutions need to focus on those needs and situations in which it has certain influence for making real progress, such as: Significant minority of Women choose and access to STEM programs at tertiary level. The lowest rates appears in science and engineering programs. Data is scarce, showing a need for analytical and systematic methods, which reflect actual participation of women in STEM at HEIs. Tertiary studies with a high math component such as STEM seem to be excluded from the studies options by girls in secondary schools. Lack of bridges between public policy and institutional actions led by HEIs. In this way, and aligned to the Erasmus + Capacity Building priority for improving management and operation of higher education, in terms of access to and democratization of Higher Education, the W‐STEM Project aims at Improving strategies and mechanisms of attraction, access and guidance of Women in Latin-American STEM Higher Education programs. For achieving this main objective, W-STEM project, will Measure the gender equality in enrolment and retention rates in STEM programs. Implement Universities’ policies, strategies and organizational mechanisms for improving attraction, access and guidance at undergraduate levels in STEM programs. Promote STEM studies vocation and choice in girls and young women in secondary schools as well as guidance in the first year of the STEM program. Develop an online training package for Higher Education Institutions to implement effective strategies to enhance attraction, access and guidance of Women in STEM programs.

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Author: search.filters.author.García-Peñalvo, F. J.Subject: search.filters.subject.gender gap

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    A Model for Bridging the Gender Gap in STEM in Higher Education Institutions
    (Springer, 2022-05-25) García-Holgado, A.; García-Peñalvo, F. J.
    Women present a historic and worrying gap in science and technologyrelated disciplines, generally knowns as STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), except in the case of health professions. A holistic approach is needed to support policymakers worldwide in bridging the gender gap in STEM, in which higher education institutions have a crucial role. Promoting this active implication of the universities in this problem, in the European project Building the future of Latin America: engaging women into STEM (W-STEM), a model to modernise the government, management and operation of higher education institutions in Latin America to improve attraction, access to and retention of women in STEM programs has been developed. This situation is not exclusive to Latin American countries, it is a global problem, so the results of the W-STEM project are also applicable to European partners and transferrable worldwide. The main goal of this chapter is to describe the W-STEM model based on three years of working on strategies and mechanisms to improve the attraction, access, guidance, and retention processes to engage more women in STEM programs. The model has been thoroughly tested in eleven institutions in Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Mexico, involving public and private institutions with different gender equality situations.
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    Facilitating Access to the Role Models of Women in STEM: W-STEM Mobile App
    (Springer, 2020-07-19) García-Holgado, A.; Verdugo-Castro, S.; Sánchez-Gómez, M. C.; García-Peñalvo, F. J.
    W-STEM is a research project funded by the European Union through the Erasmus+ program in order to develop concrete actions to mod-ernise the government, management and operation of higher education institu-tions in Latin America to improve women’s access to STEM programs. Among the main objectives of the project, there is the development of a mobile app to be used in attraction campaigns conducted by the Latin American higher education institutions involved in the project. Specifically, the app aims to facilitate access to the role models of women in areas related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. The main content inside the app will be a set of video interviews with women from different ages, cultural backgrounds, profiles, sharing their experiences about their careers, occupation and future plans. This work aims to describe the prototype of the mobile app and the exploratory study conducted with a group of students from secondary education to know their perceptions and opinions about the proposed app and the video interviews.
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    Strategies to introduce gender perspective in Engineering studies: a proposal based on selfdiagnosis
    (IEEE, 2020-04-27) González-González, C. S.; García-Holgado, A.; García-Peñalvo, F. J.
    Gender inequality in STEM careers is a global problem and avoid bias in education can be a solution. This paper presents a framework for inclusion of gender perspective in engineering courses. The methodology followed in its design was divided into two phases: the developed of different educational innovation projects and a co-creation workshop. Several instruments have been created and validated, such as questionnaires, canvas model and rubrics. The framework includes elements such as the self-diagnosis and redefinition of curriculum, conte
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    Gender equality in STEM programs: a proposal to analyse the situation of a university about the gender gap
    (IEEE, 2020-04-27) García-Holgado, A.; Mena, J.; García-Peñalvo, F. J.; Pascual, J.; Heikkinen, M.; Harmoinen, S.; García-Ramos, L.; Peñabaena-Niebles, R.; Amores, L.
    According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2020, most of the countries have achieved gender parity in educational attainment. Furthermore, Latin America and Europe have more women than men enrolled in tertiary education. The problem arises when those numbers are analysed by degree studies. There is a gender gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), with a low number of women enrolled in those programs and even lower numbers of graduates. The universities have a key role to steer new conceptions and understanding of the females in STEM. The higher education institutions have to define measures and policies to reduce the gender gap in the careers of the future. This work aims to provide a proposal to analyse the gender equality gap in STEM as a first step to define gender equality action plans focused on processes of attraction, access and retention and guidance in STEM programs. The proposal was applied in ten Latin American universities from Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Mexico, and five European universities from Finland, Ireland, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom.
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    Innovative Teaching Approaches to attract, engage, and maintain women in STEM: W-STEM project
    (Grupo GRIAL, 2019-11-14) García-Peñalvo, F. J.
    Significant progress has been made during the last decades to achieve gender equality, but there is still much work to do. In particular, the gender gap is pronounced in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields at all levels of education and labour market. In those areas, the women participation remains low, although there are differences from country to country. In the Latin American context, there is a need for carrying out studies to collect quality data about the actual situation of women in STEM. Although some available data show a high proportion of women in Latin American university education, they are a minority in STEM programs. Moreover, this problem is particularly severe in Latin America because of the biases or cultural norms that influence female behaviour. In this context, the W-STEM project seeks to improve strategies and mechanisms for attracting, accessing, and guiding women in Latin America in STEM higher education programs. This work aims to describe the main results to prepare a set of attraction campaigns in secondary schools in the Latin American countries involved in the project (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico). In particular, a self-assessment tool about gender equality in higher education institutions in Latin America, an interview protocol for female role models, and a mobile application to show those role models. This work was presented in the Coimbra Group Seminar Innovation in Learning and Teaching in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, held in Granada, Spain on 14 November 2019.
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    Engaging women into STEM in Latin America: W-STEM project
    (ACM, 2019-10-16) García-Holgado, A.; Camacho Díaz, A.; García-Peñalvo, F. J.
    Significant progress has been made during the last decades to achieve gender equality, but there is still much work to do. In particular, the gender gap is pronounced in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields at all levels of education and labour market. In those areas, the women participation remains low, although there are differences from country to country. In the Latin American context, there is a need for carrying out studies to collect quality data about the actual situation of women in STEM. Although some available data show a high proportion of women in Latin American university education, they are a minority in STEM programs. Moreover, this problem is particularly severe in Latin America because of the biases or cultural norms that influence female behaviour. In this context, the W-STEM project seeks to improve strategies and mechanisms for attracting, accessing, and guiding women in Latin America in STEM higher education programs. This work aims to describe the main results to prepare a set of attraction campaigns in secondary schools in the Latin American countries involved in the project (Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico). In particular, a self-assessment tool about gender equality in higher education institutions in Latin America, an interview protocol for female role models, and a mobile application to show those role models.