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Conclusions, Recommendations, and "Thoughts"

1. It would be useful to convene a conference on these topics, inviting both researchers and practitioners to present results and discuss the issues. A book would be produced which would compile the results.

2. There exist some recent, good, meta-analyses, which have not yet been incorporated into the publics' "commonly held beliefs".

There is a significant amount of relatively recent data which could usefully be incorporated into meta-analyses.

3. There has been a lot of work in both the basic research and in the development of programs, but the work has not been adequately integrated within each community, nor have the two communities been brought together.

4. Schools currently don't teach people how to express themselves and be listened to. It is important to teach students, especially females, how to communicate better. This skill becomes increasingly important as one progresses to college, grad school, and eventually a career, networking and communication skills are critical to "getting ahead". 

Society doesn't think of men as being "social", but power-related social relationship come into play in important ways at undergrad, grad, and career levels.

5. We should get involved with NSTA in its process to streamline and integrate science curriculum and develop a more interdisciplinary approach. The goal would be to "infiltrate" this mainstream effort in order to incorporate or embed equity concepts in the curriculum. There may be additional opportunities here, since these interdisciplinary areas are less apt to be gender-stereotyped.

This requires intervention at teacher training level; it also requires retraining for existing teachers. (This may be easiest to incorporate in elementary teacher training, since these need training in science anyway).

It would be a great service to provide teachers with information on, and training in, equity issues.

6. It is important to discuss issues in terms of "context" rather than in terms of "traits". e.g. "learned helplessness" may be situational, not a trait.

7. It is important to separate the questions of "success" (as measured by achievement at a particular point in time) and "persistence" in a field. That is, different things apparently determine whether a girl/woman is an achiever in a science class or on a test, and whether she continues to pursue courses or a career in science. (achievement is only one factor in determining persistence)

The two transition points where the highest percentage of girls (relative to boys) select other paths are (1) high school to college, and (2) between entering grad school and achieving PhD.

Source of motivation--whether external or internal locus an important factor to consider.