Jon Sterling on Nostr: I can’t tell you how often I hear suggestions that we need to adopt “pink” ...

I can’t tell you how often I hear suggestions that we need to adopt “pink” curriculum in order to repair the gender balance — usually this means curriculum that is “holistic” and treats real-world applications and concrete models rather than abstractions and theories, etc., etc., because (as the story goes) women (as opposed to men) cannot maintain interest in something that devoid of real-world implications and you cannot learn that which does not draw your attention.

Without devaluing teaching that treats applications properly, the research shows how wrong and bigoted this point of view is.

What worked at CMU will not necessarily work everywhere, and different countries and cultures have different challenges with the gender balance. But it is worth having a look at their experience.

I’m tired of seeing “gender balance” deployed as a tactic to tear down Theory (usually with stereotypes about how valuing “hard” science or mathematics is somehow misogynistic), when research and experience suggests the exact opposite. https://idf.social/@djoerd/115762206070948483