Abstract:

In the past few years, the gender gap has reduced globally but there is still a long road ahead until parity. At the current rate, it will take 99.5 years to close the gap globally and 59 years to do it in Latin America. In Brazil, female enrolment in tertiary education has increased but participation in STEM programs is still low when compared with their male counterparts. The gap in STEM education that is hailed as being essential for the future of work is a challenge that has to be tackled if the economic gender parity is ever to be attained. This study aims to present a survey, based on primary data, of initiatives that seek to promote the gender equality in STEM education in Brazil while comparing these initiatives with global ones reported by other papers and analyzing whether these initiatives focus on the country’s main needs in terms of gender equality. The paper starts with a discussion about gender equality where statistics about gender inequality in Higher Education, mainly in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) is presented.In the following section, we present the methodology and the results of our survey based on primary data of initiatives for reducing gender inequality in Brazil. The framework proposed by the UNESCO SAGA Survey of Gender Equality Instruments was used to appraise the found initiatives. In the discussion, considering the gender objectives of SAGA, we address the differences between global and Brazilian initiatives based on a review of papers on the subject and on our survey. Additionally, the Brazilian initiatives are analyzed considering the country’s needs in terms of STEM Higher Education. To support this discussion, we present the Indicators suggested by SAGA in the Higher Education objectives which include a total of female teachers by subject and by type of institution (private or public), and the total of female students by field of study. We use secondary data from the National Higher Education Census to calculate these statistics. Finally, we compare the national data with the global situation as reported by other studies. The results of our study can be used to compare the Brazilian case with other countries in terms of the current state of gender equality in STEM Higher Education as well as the initiatives to close the gender gap. The paper can also be used to help those interested in developing initiatives for gender equality in STEM to understand which problems they want to help to solve while comparing their goals with those surveyed in our work.

Keywords:

Higher Education, Gender Equality, Stem, Brazil.