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Hi Dawn, 

I agree that it is nice that these companies are taking an interest in this issue. But surely good intentions do not absolve them of the responsibility to develop an effective approach? If their attempts result in net negative impact, I don’t think we would be that grateful for their participation, right?

Apart from the obvious point that they should be using high quality formative evaluation to identify which approaches are most likely to be effective (and summative evaluation to ensure effectiveness), there is some excellent existing research available to science communication practitioners involved in tackling this kind of issue. For example, I would recommend the resources from this project at the Open University: http://www.open.ac.uk/invisible-witnesses/

Best wishes,
Eric

---------------
Dr Eric Jensen, Fellow Higher Education Academy
Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer), Department of Sociology, University of Warwick
Sociology at the University of Warwick ranked:
The Guardian, Complete University Guide and The Times Good University Guide – 3rd
QS World University Ranking - 23rd




On 28 Feb 2016, at 11:01, Dawn Bonfield <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi Sarah,
It seems that people trying to encourage girls into engineering can’t win. Anyone trying to do something aimed at the non ‘STEM Devotees’ (i.e. the girls that are going to do it anyway) get criticised for being patronising and dumbing down the message, or reinforcing stereotypes e.g. Google’s bracelet idea, IBM’s hack a hairdryer, this EDF Pretty Curious campaign, and the WES ‘cupcake’ poster.
 
From my perspective we need these campaigns, just as we also need the ‘gender neutral’ campaigns – which actually aren’t gender neutral at all unless you are already looking in that direction.
 
Good for them for doing something at all, I say.
Best wishes
Dawn
 
 
Dawn Bonfield  CEng, FICE, FIMMM, FWES
Chief Executive
Women's Engineering Society (WES)
Michael Faraday House
Six Hills Way, Stevenage
Herts, SG1 2AY
Tel: 01438 765506 (office answerphone)
01438 211403 (Dawn)
07881905520 (mobile)
[log in to unmask]
www.wes.org.uk
Twitter: @WES1919
 
National Women in Engineering Day, 23 June 2016
 
From: psci-com: on public engagement with science [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sarah Snell-Pym
Sent: 27 February 2016 08:39
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PSCI-COM] Pretty Curious
 
Boy wins Girls in STEM competition Pretty Curious by EDF - who say that though the campaign over all was for girls the comp itself was gender neutral.
 
 
What do people think?
 
From an encouraging girls point I 'm "doh well that went well and is probably a big fat fail" from a breaking stereotypes point I'm "well assuming it is only and that girls can only like make up etc... which is lame but it means boys who entered are breaking their own mould and entered something which breaks that traditional barrier". So I think that equates as the name was naff for a comp aimed at girls and they didn't know what they were doing - it seems very confused as to what the actual goals were.
 
The founder of Ada Lovelace Day and others had pointed out at the beginning that the name was not a good one.
 
It also raises the question of where do trans and gender fluid people fit in regards to such competitions and I wonder if EDF either didn't think about this stuff at all or maybe over thought it?
 
Interested in others opinions :)
 
Sarah
 
 
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