Science, Mathematics and Engineering

Malcom, S. M., George, Y. S., Van Home, V. V. (Eds) (1996). The effects of the changing policy climate on science, mathematics, and engineering (SME) diversity. Washington, DC American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

Neal, H.A. Undergraduate Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Education National Science Board Washington, D.C., 1986. 

Proposal Create a National Task Force to develop options for a nationwide program directed at increasing the number of students in science, mathematics, and engineering, leading to an increase in the technical worl orce of tomorrow. 

In the rest of this chapter we will develop the ideas so far presented in relation to the bodies of knowledge known as science, mathematics and engineering so that their respective natures may be better understood. At the end of the chapter we will attempt to isolate the difference between objective and subjective data, and between objective and subjective perceptions of phenomena. We shall find that these distinctions are related to the nature and purpose of structural design as distinct from those of science. 

In discussing the nature of science, mathematics and engineering we have noted that, despite the huge successes of modern engineering, the effective use of mathematics and science has been limited to very specific areas of activity. In particular, modern methods of structural response analysis have an apparent precision which sometimes is made a nonsense by the crudity of the assumptions made in other parts of the analysis and design. It was concluded in the last chapter that it is the literal nature of mathematics which makes it unsuitable, at the moment, for use in these other areas, but it may be possible to resolve the difficulty if a mathematics of approximate reasoning is available. 

A field-by-field analysis shows that the citation gap is generally wider in areas of basic research, where an increase in knowledge is likely to have a particularly marked effect on competitiveness. The gap is noticeable in medicine, and is particularly marked in basic life sciences, pre-clinical medicine, and health sciences. It is relatively small in fields such as the physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering. 

An implicit process called the reproduction of subordinate status (Eisenhart Finkel, 1998) has served to keep women subordinate to men by means of culturally encouraging women to value and pursue feminine behaviors and fields of study. Power relations had been preserved. The early ideological constructions and formulations of science originating from ancient prejudices stated in the most modem and approved words (Trecker, 2001, p. 96) have served as barriers to keep women away from the science, mathematics, and engineering fields until the present day. 

The fact that women are less likely to enter science, mathematics, and engineering majors at the college level than men is very closely related with women s historically subordinated status. In a sense, women are suffering prolonged effects of alienation from these fields since ancient times. As discussed before, the forces that keep women away from these disciplines originate from the nineteenth-century (and earlier) conservative scientists insistent work of justifying cultural expectations of women and the sexual division of labor. 

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