Smashing Gender Stereotypes: how education can challenge gender stereotypes and encourage more girls and women to take up careers in STEM

According to STEM Women data for 2017/18  the percentage of women studying STEM subjects in UK universities was 35% and for Engineering and Technology subjects the figure was 19%.

In part 8 of our series of events celebrating the centenary of teaching women engineering subjects at LSBU, we shift the focus onto the role of education in imposing and challenging gender stereotypes within British society.

Here we consider the long history of LSBU in promoting and providing education to women in engineering subjects. We situate this pioneering history within the wider context of female education in twentieth-century Britain. We then consider the present-day impact of gender stereotypes on the life chances of young people and the career choices they make.

Through these discussions, we hope to identify what more needs to be done to enable increasing numbers of girls and women to take up STEM subjects as a career in the twenty-first century.