Profess-sirs and Profess-hers: gender and ethnicity stereotypes that students associate with scientists

A common narrative emerges from previous studies suggesting that scientists are most frequently thought of as being old, white men. This stereotype has been assessed in the past using drawing analysis methods but here, an updated approach – a drawing activity followed by a survey was chosen, to remove the need for inference. The purpose of the survey was to understand if the aspects of the scientist-stereotype are still present and impacting school students today and if students’ career prospects are influenced by learning about a diverse range of scientists. Our findings suggest gender and ethnicity aspects of the scientist stereotype are still present but a shift has occurred, away from the old-age associated with a scientist, towards a younger individual. This adaptation suggests that it is possible to influence this stereotype and we propose that further understanding of what caused this change could influence the stereotypical gender and ethnicity too. It was found that learning about a diverse range of scientists is not associated with a school student feeling like they can have a career in STEM, which we hypothesise may be due to the passive nature of this intervention and that a more active intervention method may be needed.