Holbrook, Allyson, L. Panozza, and E. Prieto. "Engineering in children's fiction - not a good story?" International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 7, no. 4, 2009: 723-740.
In this peer reviewed journal article, the authors describe a textual analysis junior fiction books, looking for depictions of scientists and engineers. Their goal was to determine not only the frequency of science and engineering portrayed, but also the form in which is occurred. They coded 4,800 children’s books from two large public libraries, and found that only 71 referenced science and engineering themes. When the stories were more humorous (almost half the occurrences), the use of scientific stereotypes, e.g. nerdy, eccentric was more prevalent. 74% of the protagonists were male, and specific activities, such as building, making and working with machines were depicted as male focused.
The authors commented that information on the content of children’s books is not easy to obtain, and recommended a more exhaustive strategy to improve the study in the future. They also mentioned that analyzing titles available in a public library does not accurately represent the entire population of children’s literature. However, they also point out that even if there are more books with engineering and science depiction available, library collections are guided by various selection criteria, including consumer interest, which would indicate at the very least that these types of books are not popular. Overall, their results would seem to confirm their initial assumption that engineering is largely an invisible occupation.
The authors also admit that although the general depiction of engineers and scientists is generally gender biased and stereotypical, that there is no insight into how deeply these projected stereotypes are actually absorbed by their young readers.
The results of this study were a little surprising for me. I thought that they would be more frequent depictions of scientists and engineers in children’s literature. But in retrospect, I’m probably more attuned to looking for and seeing such occurrences, given my own engineering background. However, I am not at all surprised by the prevalence of the male, nerdy stereotypes, particularly in the humorous stories. I consider that to be an accepted practice. The issue is that at this young age, readers are not being presented with many alternative ideas and images of engineers and scientists.
This article is an extension of one of the ideas brought up by an earlier reading – whether or not a more diverse engineering student body would result in engineers with better communication skills. If more children are presented with a positive image of engineering as a career and therefore more students choose to study engineering, will the communication skills of all engineers improve? Or perhaps does that study and affinity group of engineering somehow impede the development of one’s communication skills?
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