Ep 9: Girls Who Break Barriers

“I do worry that I am not talented enough all the time. This is something that goes through my head a lot.” (Emma, professional tennis player)

In this episode we unpack one of the largest and most comprehensive international studies done to date on gender stereotypes and their impact on girls: “The stereotype that girls lack talent: A worldwide investigation”,published in Science Advances in March of this year. The study provided an indepth look at the global impact of deeply embedded gender stereotyping and offered significant evidence that girls are overwhelmingly more likely than boys to attribute their failures to a lack of talent. Said another way, girls may be the ones holding themselves back.

Natalie Demers, the Director of Research Initiatives and Programs for the International Association of Girls Schools, joins host Trudy Hall to discuss the stark results and offer insights for parents and educators to help confront gender stereotyping head on.The reality is that it is the mindset of a young woman that matters most as she heads out into the world to break barriers, and the good news is that there is much that the adult role models in girls lives can do to help girls push through and beyond stereotypical boundaries.

The resources you need to know about:

NCGS: https://www.ncgs.org/research/ (we are promoting this Episode as being produced by ICGS…should we still be using this website? I think we have to, but I thought I would raise the issue. Another option: I could put the link to the Global Action Research Fellows as that is referred to quite a bit in the Episode.

The Stereotype that Girls Lack Talent: A worldwide investigation; Science Advances: https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.abm3689 The Stereotype that Girls Lack Talent: A worldwide investigation · · National Coalition of Girls' Schools · Transcript.pdf — PDF (112.8 KB)