Women In Science

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education this morning notes that liberal arts colleges send a higher proportion of their female graduates on to get Ph.Ds in the physical sciences than do larger universities.

In 2005 the Survey of Earned Doctorates, which is sponsored by several federal agencies, released a report about where students who received Ph.D.’s between 2000 and 2004 had earned their bachelor’s degrees.

….

The gap was most pronounced in the sciences, especially the physical sciences. Of the 2,485 Ph.D.’s in the physical sciences earned during that period by liberal-arts college graduates, 36 percent went to women. In contrast, of the 8,388 Ph.D.’s earned in those fields by graduates of research universities, just 24 percent went to women.

Excuse my math, but this paragraph seems to omit what would be an even more dramatic statistic: that among the graduates of liberal arts colleges, the percentages of Ph.Ds awarded to women was, by definition, even higher than the 36% to women graduates of all institutions.

I haven’t read the study discussed here (and don’t plan to), but it seems to me that the dog that is not barking in this report (or at least in this article about it) is the role of women’s colleges, who send more of their graduates into math and science than do co-ed institutions.

Citing a report issued by the Women’s College Coalition, an article in University Business notes that women’s colleges “graduate women in the math and science fields at 1.5 times the rate of co-ed institutions….”

It would be interesting to see the results of a comparison between women’s colleges and co-ed liberal colleges regarding advanced math and science degrees earned by their graduates.

Say What? (2)

  1. David May 5, 2006 at 7:32 pm | | Reply

    My wife is a PhD statistician who graduated from a women’s college (Welleseley.) She has opined that men’s greater aggressiveness tends to hamper women in co-ed institutions.

  2. Stu May 8, 2006 at 11:32 pm | | Reply

    I can’t shut up.

    I am also a VMI graduate (’70) so the article about female science achievement in a single sex setting was of more than passing interest. I suspect in a few years it will be perfectly OK for states to create and support single sex institutions as long as the single sex is female, but woe be to the man who insists that women and the traditional VMI ethos may be incompatible.

    Keep pushing my buttons.

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