Are STEM Syllabi Gendered? A Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis

Both individual and institutional discrimination still exist in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) higher education, but embedded inequalities have largely replaced more visible forms of discrimination (Monroe, Ozyurt, Wrigley, & Alexander, 2008). Research suggests that the marginalization of female students and faculty persists in STEM education because of institutional factors (Cantu, 2012; Griffith, 2010; Linley & George-Jackson, 2013; Mayberry & Rose, 1999); discrimination is institutionalized through texts, policies, practices, and unwritten norms (Acker, 1990). Institutional texts, such as the syllabus, coordinate the day-to-day work of those within the institution and serve as a link between the local and ruling relations (Campbell & Gregor, 2004). The syllabus reflects the institutional values and discourses of STEM academics as a document created to inform and guide students as they pursue a STEM education; as such, a critical discourse analysis of the language used in the document to coordinate student work can reveal entrenched inequalities in STEM education (Biber, 2006a). This study explored the gendered nature of STEM in higher education through a feminist critical discourse analysis of STEM course syllabi. Through this discourse analysis, I sought to understand if and how STEM syllabi are gendered; the analysis and findings informs and extends understanding of the STEM syllabus and STEM education. Calls for research to understand the existing social and scientific systems that marginalize women in STEM fields at the institutional level have increased in the recent years (Cantu, 2012; Griffith, 2010; Linley & George-Jackson, 2013; Mayberry & Rose, 1999). This study responds to those calls for research by exploring the STEM syllabus. By understanding if and how the syllabus is gendered through a feminist critical discourse analysis, this study extends understanding of how STEM higher education marginalizes women and has the potential to make recommendations to ameliorate those factors both through changes to the syllabus as well as to the institutional culture that perpetuates it. To inform my analysis of the genre of the syllabus, I began by exploring the linguistic features of the syllabi. Specifically, I explored how linguistic features like stance and interdiscursivity were used in the corpus of syllabi explored; how is power reflected in the syllabus through the use of pronouns, and what linguistic tools and discourses are used to perpetuate the gendered nature of the STEM classroom. Conceptual Framework This study was framed through the lens of poststructuralist feminist thought to provide a lens through which I explored how power is gendered (Hesse-Biber, 2014). Poststructuralism "rejects objectivity and the notions of an absolute truth and single reality," and "knowledge is complicated, contradictory, and contingent to a certain social context and historical context" (Hesse-Biber, 2014, p. 44). For poststructural feminists, emphasis is placed on language and discourse, "regarded as constitutive of experience and not simply representative of it" (Hesse-Biber, 2014, p. 44). As such, discourse analysis is a key tool of poststructuralist researchers because the link between power and knowledge can be seen by exploring language-in-use (Hesse-Biber, 2014; Lazar, 2005). Analysis of texts looks for practical ideologies to uncover what is framed as logical ways of thinking that, in reality, perpetuate inequality (Hesse-Biber, 2014). Since patriarchal gender ideology is structural, it is enacted in institutions and reflected in institutional texts, therefore, "The task of feminist CDA is to examine how power and dominance are discursively produced and/or resisted in a variety of ways through textual representations of gendered social practices" (Lazar, 2005, p. 10). Through a framework of poststructuralist feminist thought, this discourse analysis uncovers the ways that gendered practices that favor men are represented and replicated in the syllabus. …