Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

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Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

(Resung by Science)

By: Kaplan Thaler Group

Date: April 5, 2004

Source: "Twinkle, Twinkle"—The Kaplan Thaler Group. http://www.adcouncil.org/files/mathgirls_ twinkle_nwsp.jpg (accessed May 20, 2006).

About the Artist: Kaplan Thaler Group is an United States-based advertising corporation. Kaplan Thaler Group donates time and resources to create public service announcements in conjunction with non-profit agencies and the Ad Council. The Advertising Council, or Ad Council, founded in 1942, is a private, nonprofit organization that coordinates volunteers from the advertising and media organizations to create public service announcements for U.S. audiences. Kaplan Thaler Group, The Ad Council, and the Girl Scoutsof the United States of America created the public serive announcement that appears here as part of the "Girls Go Tech—Girl Scouts and Math, Science, and Technology," program to raise awareness of the number of jobs that require technical skills. The Girl Scouts program is designed to use hands-on experiences with math, science, and technology to enhance innate abilities in those areas, and to stimulate girls' interests in pursuing nontraditional careers and personal options.

INTRODUCTION

Based on data published by the National Science Foundation, women represent only about one-quarter of the technology workforce. Girls and young women have traditionally been discouraged from pursuing study and employment in the sciences, math, and technology, based on a long-held belief that they are inherently less able in these fields than males, and that they are more capable of achieving success in the liberal, fine, and performing arts, education, or the social ("soft") sciences.

According to the "Twinkle, Twinkle" and similar ads, sponsored jointly by the Ad Council and the Girl Scouts, girls' interest in math and science has begun to wane—either from lack of exposure or because they have been led to believe that they are less able to succeed in those disciplines. The ad campaign hopes to counter those potential pitfalls and to enlist family support in fostering curiosity, inquisitiveness, and a love of learning—in all areas of study.

From the earliest days of Girl Scouting, founder Juliette Low encouraged girls and young women to pursue careers traditionally dominated by men. Some of the earliest Girl Scout badges concerned the professions of economist and businesswoman, both of which ran counter to the social and occupational mores of the day. Modern Girl Scouting builds on that tradition to engage girls with math, science, technology, and engineering concepts. The goal is both to broaden and enlarge the girls' skill bases and to raise their self-confidence and awareness of their innate intelligence, aptitudes, and abilities in the sciences, math, technology, and engineering.

The Girl Scouts have partnered with a variety of different organizations in an effort to raise skill levels and technological awareness. The Intel Foundation is one corporate partner that uses an experiential curriculum that offers girls the opportunity to explore their interests in science, technology, and engineering by participating with female mentors who are professionals in those fields.

PRIMARY SOURCE

" TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE STAR" (RESUNG BY SCIENCE)

See primary source image.

SIGNIFICANCE

Other program sponsors are the Lucent Technologies Foundation, which offers a home-based study and support program that suggests simple and inexpensive projects made from materials typically found around the house. Another sponsor, the NASDAQ Educational Foundation, funds programs in which girls create, build, and maintain imaginary investment portfolios by engaging in mock stock trades. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) promotes the emeritbadges program, which study the methods by which girls are best engaged in learning about technology. The next project phase will involve the design and implementation of gender-and age-appropriate tools and study programs with which to increase girls' technological understanding. The overarching goal is to increase the number of girls and young women entering the science, engineering, and technological occupations.

According to the National Science Foundation (NSF) data, women currently make up nearly fifty percent of the overall work force but hold only about one-fourth of the jobs in technology, and make up only about ten percent of the highest echelon technology positions. NSF data suggests that career paths are often set before the end of elementary school, with many girls steered away from scientific, engineering, or technological professions before they even reach adolescence. Girls Go Tech hopes to change those statistics, and to encourage girls and young women to create new career trajectories, and to pursue paths that will set the stage for a future workforce that is both more gender balanced and more diverse in its makeup.

In an effort to circumvent some of the subtle (and not-so-subtle) gender bias that can still be found within the public school system, several independent all-girls schools emphasizing the study of math, science, and technology have sprung up during the past decade. Research suggests that girls perform considerably better, and express significantly keener interests and aptitudes for the sciences when they attend same-gender schools. Although high school girls' national test scores have begun to catch up to boys' in math and science, they still lag far behind in the area of technology.

There is a growing economic need to close the gender gap in technological occupations as well, since single mothers head a significant proportion of American households. At the start of the twenty-first century, women constituted about half of the labor market, but earned only about 18% of the doctorates in computer science, and just over 10% of the doctorates in engineering earned in any given year. Women represent less than one-quarter of all of the scientists and engineers in the current workforce.

Girls whose interest in science, math, and technology is sparked at an early age, and who are encouraged to pursue their curiosity to the point of success, are more likely to continue to explore those areas, and to pursue advanced education in them. Teaching methods that encourage all students are the most likely to lead to sustained interest, and can pave the way to narrowing the gender gap in the technological fields.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

American Association of University Women. Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age. Washington, DC: AAUW Educational Foundation, 2000.

Driscoll, Catherine. Girls: Feminine Adolescence in Popular Culture and Cultural Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 2002.

Margolis, Jane, and Allan Fisher. Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002.

National Science Foundation. Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering: 1998. Arlington, Virginia: National Science Foundation, 1999.

Periodicals

Crombie, Gail, and P.I. Armstrong. "Effects of Classroom Gender Composition on Adolescents' Computer Related Attitudes and Future Intentions." Journal of Educational Computing Research. 20, no. 4 (1999): 317–327.

Denner, Jill, Linda Werner, Steve Bean, and Shannon Campe. "The Girls Creating Games Program: Strategies for Engaging Middle-School Girls in Information Technology." Frontiers: A Journal of Women's Studies. 26, no. 1 (2005):90–92.

Hafner, Katie. "Girls Soak up Technology in Schools of Their Own." New York Times. September 23, 1999.

Keller, Johannes. "Blatant Stereotype Threat and Women's Math Performance: Self-Handicapping as a Strategic Means to Cope with Obtrusive Negative Performance Expectations." Sex Roles. 47(2002): 193–198.

Liu, Min, and Yu-Ping Hsaio. "Middle School Students as Multimedia Designers: A Look at Their Cognitive Skills Development." Journal of Interactive Learning Research. 1 (2002): 1139–1144.