Transcript Women in Physics: The situation in Sweden Lotten Glans and

Women in Physics: The situation in Sweden
Lotten
1,4)
Glans
1)Dept.
and Katarina Wilhelmsen
2,3,4)
Rolander
Of Engineering, Physics and Mathematics, Mid Sweden University, S-851 70 Sundsvall
2)Dept. of Physics, Stockholm University, S-106 91 Stockholm
3)Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI), S-172 90 Stockholm
4)Swedish Physical Society (SFS)
Specific about Sweden
Sweden is one of the countries in the world with the largest
percentage of women working outside home and it is generally
regarded as a country where there is equality between the
genders. Nevertheless among the working women nearly 80 %
work in areas dominated by women.
Slightly more than 50% of the university undergraduate students
and 45 % of the graduate students are women. The percentage of
women decreases on higher levels, with 25% women among
university lecturers and only 12% of the professors. When there
is an imbalance in the gender representation employers are
required by law to seek to remedy this imbalance by specifically
recruiting persons of the under represented gender. However at
universities positions are often announced with a very narrow
competence profile that suits one intended applicant, which in
most cases is a man.
Many universities have a policy that if there are less than 4
applicants for a post the area should be reassessed by the board
to attract more applicants. We have a suggestion that field of
research should also be reassessed if there are no female
applicants. Needless to say that to our knowledge no university
employs this criterion at the moment.
The Swedish Association of
University Teachers (SULF)
SULF is a union for professors, lecturers, researchers and
postgraduate students within Swedish universities and colleges.
SULF also has members from the Swedish national research
councils. SULF has no political affiliations. SULF has a broad
equal opportunities program. Some items on the agenda are:
Organization and Leadership, Recruitment, Professional life,
Personal life and parenthood, Equal salaries, Sexual harassment.
SULF has also made a survey of differences in salary.
Since 20 years structural differences in salary based on e.g.
gender are prohibited in Sweden. In 2001 a government agency
showed that there is an actual difference of 10% in salary
between men and women which it is not possible to explain by
objective reasons.
Last year a statistical survey of the salaries of university
employees was done at Lund University. The result of this
survey is that when one normalizes for faculty, age and level of
competence there is still a systematic difference in salary
between men and women, on all levels except assistant
professors. This is true for all faculties. Since 2000 the
difference has increased among professors while for other
categories there seem to be only random fluctuations. No major
efforts have been made to remedy this situation.
(www.sulf.se)
Statistics for the whole country
Statistical figures have been compiled by a board member of the
Swedish Physical Society. Twelve institutions that award firstlevel degrees in physics were contacted and we received data
from 10 of these:
First-level Degrees per year
Degrees to men
87
Degrees to women
29
Five institutions gave data on Ph.D. degrees:
Ph.D. Degrees per year
Degrees to men
40
Degrees to women
10
The ratio of women to men in the top two management levels of
funding agencies:
Agency
Ratio of women to men
The Knowledge foundation
1.14
Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research 0.71
The Swedish Research Council*)
0
Swedish Agency for innovation systems
0.40
The data come from correspondence with physicists, University
administration or Institute administration.
*) Main funding agency for basic research
Stockholm University
The ministry of Research and
Education
The ministry of research and education, when asked, do not
state anything specific about physics or science in the next
propositions to the parliament. (When asked today’s main issue
is to raise the number of male students in health care educational
programmes). However several efforts have been made in recent
years.
Some years ago a law concerning funding for Ph.D. students
was passed. It is now required that there is full funding (four
years) before a Ph.D. student is accepted at a university
department. Before it was possible for students to start (and in
some cases finish) their Ph.D. without funding.
Some years ago (1999) a report concerning equal opportunities
issues in undergraduate physics text books was compiled. (von
Wright 1999). It is shown, among other things, that most text
books are far from gender sensitive and show little gender
awareness. Scientific knowledge is presented as being more
accurate than other areas of knowledge. A vast majority of the
texts value properties that traditionally are thought of as of male
gender higher than female.
Gender inclusive programmes
Following an initiative from the Swedish Government, to
increase the number of women in male dominated
undergraduate programmes, five gender-inclusive projects
started in 1995. These have recently been evaluated. The new
programmes had common features such as:
Rethinking of traditional forms of teaching and assessing,
problem solving approaches and implementation of
interdisciplinary studies.
Three of the projects have been very successful in their goals to
recruit female students and to keep them. Common for these
programmes was that they created strong internal cultures with
small project groups and staff continuity. In this way it was
easier to introduce the ”new” way of thinking into a male
dominated environment. One important factor to recruit and
keep women was that the students were first introduced to all
subjects and the choice between subjects was postponed. It was
also important that the students worked closely with peers and
tutors.
The evaluation can be found at:
www.hsv.se/rapporter_nyhetsbrev/pdf/ISBN_80_X.pdf (in
English)
Stockholm University has an official equal opportunities policy
which states that the gender balance should be between 40% and
60% at all departments. The physics department is far from
fulfilling this goal. The number of women faculty at the
Department of Physics is 11%. Among the undergraduate
students 50% are girls (January 2000) and 30% of the graduate
students were girls at that time. When hiring new staff the
department does not focus on equal opportunities, during the
last ten years one woman and five male faculty have been hired.
In the year 2001 the department was evaluated and the women
presented figures and some ideas on how to increase the number
of women faculty. In the evaluation report the issue was not
even mentioned and when the chair of the evaluation committee
was asked why, he said that they had ”forgotten it”.
There are few official initiatives from the department to increase
the number of women among the undergraduate students, but on
an individual level there have been more. To increase the
interest for physics among young girls elementary-school
teachers receive further education in physics. There has been a
special emphasis on ”everyday aspects” of physics, e.g. simple
experiments that can be performed in class, and not so much
mathematics. The results from these courses where we try to
”Sell physics to women” are very encouraging.
Stockholm University has also participated in the gender
inclusive programme with a ”Project oriented study
programme”. This programme has however been terminated.
Some years girls in high-school have been invited to the
department and been informed on what it is like to work as a
physicist.
Royal Institute of Technology
(K TH)
At the Royal Institute of Technology there is a project called
”Technology for girls” to introduce women/girls to physics,
chemistry and technology. This is part of a larger initiative to
introduce children and youngsters (girls and boys) to these
fields. The project is a local initiative from the project leader.
Girls in Stockholm, 13-14 years old, are offered to participate
in the course which is sponsored by the city of Stockholm and
the National Agency for Education. The course is very popular
and only about half of the applicants are accepted due to lack of
space. Students at KTH are tutored by the project leader and
then guide the girls in the laboratories. The guidance is both on
a scientific and a more personal level. The girls are divided into
small groups and perform about 2 experiments per day. Similar
courses, but with more theory are given for girls at the age of
17. Most of the girls are very positive and many continue in the
field.
KTH has had a mentorship programme for female
undergraduate and graduate students for many years. Due to a
reorganization this programme has been terminated but there are
plans to start a similar programme again, this time for both
genders.
Uppsala University
Physics majors undergraduate level 29% women
Graduate students 22%
assistant professor 28%
Lecturer 13%
Professor 3%
Professor (chair) 0%
At Uppsala university the department is refunded at a level of
70% for a graduating male Ph.D and 105% for a woman Ph.D.
A network for female physicists, throughout Sweden, was
established in Uppsala in 2001. The aim is to have a yearly
conference for female physicists. One of the divisions at the
physics department has a unique number of 55% women among
the graduate students. This in turns attracts female students to
the division.
Chalmers University of
Technology/Göteborg
University
Statistics: percent women and (number of women):
Undergraduate students 22% (first year)
Graduate students 23% (30)
Assistant professors 13% (3)
Lecturer 9% (4)
Professor 11% (1)
Professor (chair) 17% (4)
The secretary syndrome: women are treated as
assistants/secretaries. Female students’ research is not taken as
seriously as male students’.
Chalmers/Göteborg University have participated in the
programme of gender-inclusive projects described above, with
the programme ”Scientific Problem Solving”. This programme
incorporates studies in mathematics, physics and environmental
sciences and has attracted many women. There are also local
initiatives from teachers to create courses with ”everyday
problems” and these often attract women. The drop-out rate for
women has been very low in this programme.
www.fysik.uu.se
www.chalmers.se
Personal reflections: