What Happens When You Ask a Child to Draw a Scientist Is Inspiring

What Happens When You Ask a Child to Draw a Scientist Is Inspiring More than 20,000 American have been tasked with putting a crayon to paper over the last half-century as parte of a series of studies to explore a trend in gender-based perceptions of scientists.And kids, in particular, revealthe affirming trend, as theyre increasingly drawing more women when they imagine scientists.A team of psychology researchers compiled the data of 78 draw-a-scientist studies dating from 1966 to 2016. Through their meta-analysis, they found that, while todays youth mucksmuschenstill sees science as a predominantly male profession, more kids than ever before are starting to see it differently.The results, published in the journalChild Development,are clear. In the 1960s and 1970s, 99.4 percent of children drew men when asked to draw a scientist. Between 1985 and 2016, an average of 72 percent of children drew men. In the 2010s, around one in three children drew the scientists as women.And, if this t rend holds steady, the futurereally could be female or, at least, equal.Western Michigan University communications professor Jocelyn Steinke toldThe Washington Postthat the study isimportant because it shows that childrens gender stereotypes of scientists have decreased over the past five decades in the United States. She added, We see television programs likeSciGirls andProject Mc2 and films like Gravity and Hidden Figures that seek to inspire girls by featuring positive female STEM role models.David Miller, a psychology researcher at Northwestern University and the lead author of this study,added that the positive trend is probably in part a result of an increasing proportion of female scientists in mass media (ReadScully inThe X-Files, Ellie Sattler inJurassic Park andBones inBones.) and in part because of female scientists in real life. While women are still underrepresented in science, the gap is not as severely as in years past 35.2 percent of chemists are women, for example ,according to theNational Girls Collaborative Project.The study, however, also showed that children tend to associate science with men more as they grow up, perhaps because children draw what they see.Society as a wholeneeds to change these representations so more kids, as they get older,see what they can be and, perhaps until then, we need to do some convincing that they can still be what they cant necessarily see.--AnnaMarie Houlis is a multimedia journalist and an adventure aficionado with a keen cultural curiosity and an affinity for solotravel. Shes an editor by day and a travel blogger at HerReport.org by night.