Critical Reading 2 Jacob Lequire

Beneath the numbers: A review of gender disparities in undergraduate education across

science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines
Summary: This scholarly article is a sort of basic article that highlights the existence of
disparity between genders in terms of academic achievement, participation, and effective
measures throughout the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. The
article begins with an abstract that outlines the reason for writing the article, which is to stress
the gender inequities existent in the areas I mentioned previously. The paper then follows the
same basic format of academic research papers, with an introduction, research and
accompanying data, and a conclusion, followed by references. Whats interesting to note about
this article is that it includes a disclaimer stating that gender is a spectrum, but for the purposes
of the article the term gender referred to male and female only. I thought that that disclaimer was
very progressive and necessary, as people would not want to get offended when reading. The
main idea of this article is that these gender inequities may stem from sociocultural factors such
as stereotypes and gender socialization. The data table included different psychological and
observed factors that arise from different catalysts, such as a stereotype, and how they affected
women in STEM. The article then offers further research suggestions to particularly interested
readers. The article then concludes by reiterating the findings and the evidence of a disparity in
gender performance in STEM fields. It also offers a solution, which consists of a cross-
discipline reform that forms a dialogue across the different fields in natural and social sciences.
Together, instead of singularly, the author hopes this idea will help lessen and eventually remove
these gender inequities.

Summary 2.0: This scholarly article is a sort of basic article that highlights the existence of
disparity between genders in terms of academic achievement, participation, and effective
measures throughout the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. The
main idea of this article is that these gender inequities in STEM may stem from sociocultural
factors such as stereotypes and gender socialization. This was evidenced by a data table
including different psychological and observed factors that arise from different catalysts, such as
a stereotype, and how they affected women in STEM. The article then concludes by reiterating
the findings and the evidence of a disparity in gender performance in STEM fields.

Rhetorical Analysis: The audience of this article was mainly people who want to learn more
about and try to do something about gender bias in STEM fields, which, seeing as how the
gender bias is skewed toward men, is women. A few different secondary audiences may arise
when searching for an article of this ilk, such as people in STEM fields. The purpose of this
article is to highlight possible and plausible causes of gender bias in STEM, such as stereotyping
threats. Smaller purposes included bringing this gender disparity to light if people didnt already
know about it. This article was published online, and like many online articles, it could
incorporate different modes if text, such as data tables, which make the paper more visually
appealing as well as show important data. This text was found under the ERIC database, which
is generally an education-based search engine, which may explain why an academic article such
as this appeared there. This article was also interesting because it nested its sections, so the
reader was able to drill down to specific sections or keep only what they want to see on their
screen. The authors of this article, Sarah Eddy and Sara Brownell are both staff at universities in
the U.S., which means they are probably closer than others to the bias in STEM fields (majors) at
their respective institutions. The main conventions of academic journal are an abstract that
summarizes the article, followed by an introduction, data, and conclusion, each of which this
article had. The defining feature of this article however, was the ability to show specific
sections, which I mentioned earlier. Since this article is online, Im sure other features like this
will be accessible in other online texts.

References:

Eddy, Sarah L., and Sara E. Brownell. "Beneath the numbers: A review of gender disparities in
undergraduate education across science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines." Physical
Review Physics Education Research 12.2 (2016): n. pag. Web.