At present there are two issues in physics education making media headlines. The first, the critical shortage of specialist physics teachers in England; the second, the persistently low number of girls choosing A level physics. Is it possible that these two, seemingly separate issues might, in fact be linked and that by making inroads into one it may help to improve the situation in the other?
Girls and Physics
The Institute of Physics have been investigating and working on the problem of gender imbalance for many years and it was as a physics teacher in 2006 that I became aware that this was an issue of concern beyond my own classroom and department. And so the low uptake of girls in physics is by no means a new phenomenon but it remains a stubborn problem to shift. Despite a plethora of interventions and initiatives designed to address this issue, the participation rate of girls has remained at 20% of the total over recent decades. The issue is deeply rooted in society at large and within the physics community.
Physics teacher shortage
It is startling to realise that one in five 11-16 secondary schools do not have a single member of staff with a physics or physics related degree (IOP 2013),. In December 2014 the UK government committed £67 million (DfE 2015) to a range of initiatives to designed to increase the number of specialist maths and physics teachers, and subsequently a number of initiatives have been announced to address the problem (Teaching Subject Specialism Programme, pre-ITT Subject Knowledge Enhancement, A level grants initiative to name but three). What is clear is that there is a significant supply problem that starts with A level choice. Startlingly, physics is the 4th most popular subject for boys yet the 18th most popular subject for girls (IOP 2013). Clearly if we were to balance up this situation, the supply chain would be boosted.
The link
In business if, for over 40 years we had failed to ‘sell’ our product to an identified market, despite best efforts, surely we would question what is it is that we are trying to ‘sell’. So much of the debate around the issue of girls and physics is centred on the market (that is girls) and not the product (physics). So, is something wrong with ‘physics’? Is what we understand to be physics fundamentally gendered? Are we trying hard enough to adapt, change, and be open to alternative approaches to physics itself?
An imaginary case study
What follows is an imaginary case study drawn anecdotally from conversations with physics teachers and students over the years. Imagine Alice, a Year 10 girl who, through the enthusiasm, passion and subject specific, gender aware pedagogical expertise of her (idealised?) physics teacher, thinks she may be interested in taking the subject at A level. Having resisted the strong pull (or push!) towards medicine (and therefore biology and chemistry A levels), she goes against societal norms and chooses physics. Her interest in the subject remains strong throughout her A level studies especially towards the end when, finally, after 7 years of secondary education, the big picture of physics becomes clear. It becomes time to think about university applications. What she really wants to do is learn more about physics, a deeper understanding of its concepts and how it explains the physical world and the interactions within it, its history, how it has played its part in the advancement of society, etc. Furthermore, inspired by her physics teacher and also her interests out of school, she thinks she would like to be a teacher. What she doesn’t want to be is a ‘physicist’, nor is she particularly motivated by what she perceives will be the increasingly abstract and mathematical representations of the physical world that a traditional physics degree would largely consist of.
And so what does Alice do? She may opt for primary teaching, abandon the physics and choose a completely different degree course, she may choose to study what she identifies as physics related subjects such as engineering (not a bad thing in itself, engineering has its own gender battle to fight). In any event, we stand a very good chance of losing Alice from the physics teacher supply chain. We also lose her potential to become that passionate, ‘expert’, inspiring physics teacher that so influenced her.
Here at Sheffield Hallam University we do offer an alternative through our undergraduate routes into teaching in mathematics, science and D&T. There is also a small but growing number of other institutions now also (re)instating these courses. But beyond that, I do not know of degree programmes out there which offer the opportunity to learn about physics (physics studies, perhaps?) Could such awards be the very thing that we need to hold onto the Alices? With more Alices making it as physics teachers, might we improve both the quantity and quality of the physics teacher workforce, thereby inspiring a new generation? Would such awards create a virtuous cycle of growth?
And all this, of course, would not just be for girls!
Heather Wain is a Principal Lecturer in Physics Education and Head of secondary Undergraduate ITE provision. She has a particular interest in physics teacher recruitment, gender issues in physics and physics education research.
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