INTRODUCTION

Social practices that work against women's participation in science are often embedded in a seemingly gender-neutral competitive selection system. In this chapter we discuss how the normal workings of the U.S. higher educational system push women out rather than recruiting them into science and engineering careers. We contrast the workings of the unofficial ‘weed-out’ system in undergraduate education at large universities with a ‘everse weed-out’ system at small colleges that must recruit students to their science courses in order to maintain their majors.

The weed-out system

In large universities at the bachelor's or first degree level, women often encounter a ‘weed-out’ system of courses based upon a competitive model that is designed to eliminate unwanted numbers of prospective students. This system has even worse effects on women than it does on men. Its encoded meanings, obscure to young women whose education was grounded in a different system of values, produce feelings of rejection, discouragement, and lowered self-confidence (Seymour, 1995).

A fortunate few women, after surviving this perilous journey, are recruited into a smaller scale, supportive version of the graduate research apprenticeship model. These women had no difficulties academically as undergraduates, in fact they were usually at the top in their classes and worked closely with their professors who were often important researchers. This perhaps explains why virtually all of the students interviewed in the graduate school samples reported positive and successful experiences in undergraduate school.