长大想干什么？女孩比男孩更有志向

如果你希望从事编程和外科医生的女性人数跟男性差不多，那么，好消息来了：新近调查显示，小学女生比男生更有兴趣从事STEM（科学、技术、工程、数学）领域的职业。

而且，过去25年来，男孩子们的理想工作相对稳定，而小女孩希望从事的职业却越发高端，也越来越有抱负。

在1989年，英国期刊British Journal of Guidance and Counseling曾发表一项调查结果称，11岁的男孩长大后最想当运动员、服役军人或者工程师。而Fatherly发布的一项针对11岁以下孩子的最新调查显示，男孩希望从事的职业大致未变，最受欢迎的仍是职业运动员，其次是消防员和工程师。Fatherly是主要用户群是2000年之后初为人父者。

1989年的调查显示，当时的女孩希望长大后做教师、护士、空乘、秘书和美发师。而根据Fatherly的最新调查，最受女孩欢迎的理想职业是医生，其次是教师和科学家。

Some good news for those who hope to someday live in a world where women coders and surgeons are as plentiful as their male counterparts: Today’s elementary school girls are actually more interested in pursuing a STEM career than their male classmates are.

What’s more, while young boys’ ideal jobs have stayed relatively consistent over the past quarter century, young girls career dreams have grown loftier and more ambitious.

Back in 1989, a study published in the British Journal of Guidance and Counseling found that 11-year-old boys were most interested in becoming an athlete, a service member, or an engineer. Now, a new survey of children 10 and younger, released byFatherly, a site for millennial dads, found that boys’ career dreams have stayed relatively stable. Pro athlete once again came in at No. 1, followed by firefighter and engineer.

In the 1989 study, girls said they aspired to be teachers, nurses, flight attendants, secretaries and hairdressers. In the Fatherly survey, though, girls’ No. 1 pick was doctor, followed by teacher and scientist.

还有一点值得注意：总体而言，女孩比男孩更倾向于对STEM领域的工作感兴趣。41%的受访女孩对科技领域职业表示感兴趣，对同领域感兴趣的受访男孩比例为32%。

Fatherly的联合创始人西蒙•艾萨克认为，女孩对科技业工作更感兴趣固然可喜，但性别平等事业的进步空间仍然存在。他说：“更多女孩对STEM领域感兴趣确实令人欣慰，具体来说主要是医疗保健和科技方面。但如果仔细观察目前1岁到10岁年龄段的孩子就会发现，女孩投身于工程、电脑编程等其他科技领域，还有很长的路要走。”

最近，其他一些研究也得出了类似结论，其中包括谷歌和盖洛普咨询公司的联合调查，以及经合组织的一项研究。这些研究都发现，和男孩相比，女孩从事计算机和工程领域工作的几率要小一些。

艾萨克指出：“虽然我们一直说，现在的孩子们是逐渐摆脱传统性别角色的一代，性别平等意识比之前任何一代都强烈。但具体到影响到孩子们的职业倾向上，性别平等的进步并没那么明显。”

艾萨克还说，他之所以决定投身这项的研究，是为了更好地理解当今世界的偶像文化。如今，偶像分布的领域十分广泛，从美国驰名娱乐圈和体育界的卡戴珊家族、Facebook创始人兼首席执行官马克•扎克伯格，到以争取妇女接受教育权利闻名的巴基斯坦少女马拉拉•优素福•扎伊，正是他们在塑造新一代学生的职业观。

哈佛大学创新实验室的校聘专家、《创造创新者：改变世界的年轻人是如何出现的》一书作者托尼•瓦格纳透露：“通过在小学阶段的调查，我们发现孩子们树立志向时常常受到媒体内容的影响。”

瓦格纳称，媒体内容中的性别规范已经开始改变，尤其是在塑造医学和科学领域的女性形象时。他相信媒体的转变与年轻女孩对相关领域兴趣增加并非巧合。与此同时，在工程和计算机等等女孩从来兴趣寥寥的领域，媒体中相应的人物形象几乎没变化。

瓦格纳还透露，研究发现女孩更感兴趣的是让人感觉有机会与他人直接接触的职业，比如医学和教育。

“女孩们并不清楚的是，许多工程学和其他STEM领域的工作也是紧紧围绕着人展开的。问题在于怎么教她们理解这点。”瓦格纳指出。

他还说，媒体中的程序员和工程师经常是粘着电脑屏幕工作数小时，殊不知这样只会加深既有印象。“当你开始将工程学看作设计问题，领悟到工程可以解决人类的切身问题，你就可以抓住所有学生的注意力，特别是女生，你会发现她们会比之前积极得多。”（财富中文网）

译者：Pessy

校对：夏林

Also notable: Overall, girls were more likely to say they were interested in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) job than their male counterparts. Indeed, 41% of girls expressed interest in technical career, vs. 32% of boys.

Yet while girls’ increased interest in scientific careers is clearly something to celebrate, there is still progress to be made, says Simon Isaacs, the co-founder of Fatherly. “We can celebrate the girls’ focus on STEM, which is largely focused towards healthcare and the sciences, but if we look at ages 1 through 10 right now, we still have a long way to go with regards to getting girls involved in engineering, computer programming and other tech fields.”

Other recent studies, including one by Google and Gallup and another by the OECD, similarly found that American girls believe they are relatively unlikely to end up in a career that requires computer science or engineering skills.

“Even as we talk about being a generation that is growing up more gender-non-conformist than any other generation, we aren’t necessarily seeing that translate into what [kids] want to be,” said Isaacs.

Isaacs adds that he decided to pursue this research to better understand how today’s culture of role models—who are as diverse as the Kardashians, Mark Zuckerberg, and Malala Yousafzai are shaping the next generation of students’ career ambitions.

“What we find at the elementary level is that kids are often basing their aspirations on whatever they’ve been exposed to in the media,” said Tony Wagner, an expert in residence at Harvard University’s Innovation Lab and author of Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change The World.

Wagner adds that gender norms portrayed in the media have begun to change, specifically with regards to female characters in medicine and science. He believes it’s no coincidence that those the fields are now seeing greater interest from young girls. The gender depictions, however, remain relatively unchanged in the fields of engineering and computer science, where school-aged girls have traditionally expressed less interest.

Wagner adds that in his research he has found that girls are more interested in careers that are portrayed as having a direct human connection, like medicine and education.

“What they don’t understand is that much of engineering, and other STEM work, is profoundly human-centered. The problem lies in how it’s taught,” he said, adding that depictions of coders and engineers spending hours on end glued to a computer screen only reinforce that perception. “When you begin to understand engineering as a design problem, as meant to solve real human problems, you immediately engage all students, and particularly women, far more actively than you would otherwise.”