This online workshop, organized by the Paris Centre for Cosmological Physics (PCCP), tackles the issues of gender biases and imbalances in STEM with a special regard to education and communication with the younger population.
The workshop will be structured in theoretical lectures as well as practical sessions to provide the participants with tools to actively contribute to a more gender-balanced environment in education and research.
The workshop represents the second in the series of the PCCP gender equality actions.
Our invited speaker will be Tomas Brage, Professor and Director of Education in Physics at Lund University. During the last 15 years, he has been strongly involved in gender and science, participating in numerous projects at national and European level.
What does Gender have to do with Physics?
Physics is often seen, by Physicists not the least, as an objective Science and we believe we are surrounded by a “culture without culture”. At the same time our history, class and board rooms are dominated by men. This is a paradox that should awaken the curiosity of anyone and during the workshop we will discuss this – we will look at some examples on how you can approach the question in the title and go through some facts and definitions. There have been several studies of Physicists and I will combine a discussion of these with some general theory and personal experiences, to paint a picture on how gender transgress Physics, like all other fields. In the first workshop we will also discuss careers and idea of meritocracy – does it work?
On the second workshop we will focus more on our roles as teachers (and learners). How can our teaching be more inclusive and how can you practice gender-sensitive teaching?
The workshops will be a combination of talks and discussions, where we will aim to find some practical advice and tools for our future work as Physicists.
