Stemettes, a social enterprise which encourages girls and young women aged 5–25 to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths, launched its first White Paper to promote women in the STEM curriculum. The launch event, held on Thursday 7 March 2024 at Portcullis House, London, was in celebration of International Women’s Day to #InspireInclusion. Hosted by Dawn Butler MP, guests included supporters, policymakers and students eager to see a change to representation across our STEM GCSE/A-Level curriculum.
Equitable Curriculum Reform: More and Diverse Female and Non-Binary Representation in The UK GCSE and A-Level Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Curriculum
‘Since our inception, a diverse set of role models has been central to our approach and subsequent success. At this juncture for Stemettes, there is a sizable opportunity to harness the power of our expertise and advocate for change. For our 10th birthday, we decided to pick up this mantle and take more direct action on diverse representation in the curriculum inspired by a 2023 letter written by Dinah Lewis, Jaynie S. and Ruben Persey.’
The Stemettes White Paper makes five recommendations for government, institutes, industry, educators and parents & carers. The recommendations are based on the insights generated from research collated through a series of multi-stakeholders roundtable discussions, interviews, surveys and text-based research. At the White Paper launch event, Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE, CEO of Stemettes moderated a panel discussion on their findings with:
- Aminah Haider, Stemettes Futures Youth Board
- Rose Russell MBE, The Ursuline Academy Ilford School
- Julia Adamson MBE, The British Computer Society
- Amy Brewer, OCR
The recommendations of the Stemettes White Paper are:
For Government: Role models that represent the students – We recommend that the Government must include more and diverse representation, in the form of role models, into the UK GCSE and A-Level Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths statutory subject content. This will allow for more young women and non-binary individuals to believe that STEM subjects are attainable and pursue further education or pathways into the STEM Industry.
For Institutes: Every day models for every day people – We recommend to equitably raise the profiles of their diverse members and to ensure the educational resources they create are accessible and actively inclusive. Stemettes, and other grassroots education organisations, need Institutes to work more cohesively for their diverse membership in order to support their work on the ground.
For Industry: Creating impact at the grassroots level – We recommend Industry support grassroot efforts to build their future workforce pipeline. To do so, we ask that Industry seek to support educational organisations through providing funding to grassroots initiatives, volunteering days/schemes and by raising the profile of internal role models.
For Educators: Experience driven Curriculum reform – We recommend Educators to support the campaign to include more and diverse representation within GCSE and A-Level UK STEM statutory curriculum content. Educators should do this by ensuring that teachers feel supported by Senior Leadership Teams and subject leaders and look towards introducing a ‘whole school equity’ approach.
For Parents and Carers: Rewriting the future – We recommend that parents and carers work to reframe how they talk about STEM with their young people. Many young people perceive STEM subjects to be exclusively for boys or are too hard/only for the highest achievers in school: we need parents and carers to help rewrite this.
“We need to broaden who can pursue a career in STEM and challenge stereotype and dominant ideas that have long excluded girls and non-binary individuals,” said Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon, CEO of Stemettes, “Over the 11 years that Stemettes have spent working with young people, we have constantly notes the lack of exposure to relatable role models. The adage ‘if you can see it, you can bet it’ encapsulates the issue with the current UK STEM curriculum content.”
We will continue to push for equitable representation within the UK STEM curriculum and commit to being available to support policymakers to make this reform a reality”, she added.
Click here to download a copy of the Stemettes White Paper on the STEM Curriculum
About Stemettes
Stemettes is an award-winning social enterprise working across the UK & Ireland and beyond to inspire and support girls, young women and non-binary young people into Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths careers (known collectively as STEAM) by showcasing a diversity of people working in STEAM . For further information visit https://stemettes.org/