Access & Disparities

"Long before Facebook introduced its hot new Social Graph app, researchers in the ADVANCE project at NJIT were pioneering the use of social network mapping to help women scientists and engineers supercharge their career. 

"The National Women's Law Center filed complaints against 12 school districts Wednesday alleging they failed to offer equal opportunities for female athletes. The center said data from 2006 indicated the districts violated Title IX, the federal law prohibiting gender discrimination in federally funded education programs.
The schools can satisfy Title IX in one of three ways: if the percentage of athletes who are girls is about the same as the student body; if the school has continually expanded athletic opportunities for girls; or if the school meets its female students' interest in participating in sports.

In the 12 districts, the percentage of girls playing sports was lower than that of the student body. The gaps ranged from 8 percentage points in New York to 33 in Chicago. The center found the gap increased in most of the districts from 2004 to '06, indicating that opportunities had not been expanding. It also said the districts didn't field teams in all girls sports sanctioned by their state, suggesting that interest was not being met.

The complaints will be investigated by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. The center selected one school in each of the 12 OCR regions based on the 2006 data."

"Armed men burned down a girls' primary school in eastern Afghanistan Monday night, an act that also destroyed hundreds of Qurans, a government official said Tuesday. Ministry of Education spokesman Asif Nang tells CNN that the Sangar girls' primary school, located in the Alengar district of Laghman province, was destroyed.

Taliban militants have attacked girls' schools in the past, but Seddiqui said that the fire was apparently set by "addicts and thieves" in a failed robbery attempt. The provincial governor's spokesman, Gul Rahman Hamdard, confirmed the burning of the school and the Qurans. He told CNN an investigation is ongoing.  Women were oppressed during the Taliban's rule, from 1996-2001, and many Afghan girls were not allowed to attend school during that time.

Girls' schools began reopening after the Islamist regime was toppled. The United Nations children's agency, UNICEF, estimates this year that 2 million Afghan girls are attending school."

"The mathematical skills of boys and girls, as well as men and women, are substantially equal, according to a new examination of existing studies in the current online edition of journal Psychological Bulletin.

Sara Lindberg, now a postdoctoral fellow in women's health at the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, was the primary author of the meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin.

The idea that both genders have equal math abilities is widely accepted among social scientists, Hyde adds, but word has been slow to reach teachers and parents, who can play a negative role by guiding girls away from math-heavy sciences and engineering. "One reason I am still spending time on this is because parents and teachers continue to hold stereotypes that boys are better in math, and that can have a tremendous impact on individual girls who are told to stay away from engineering or the physical sciences because 'Girls can't do the math.'"

Scientists now know that stereotypes affect performance, Hyde adds. "There is lots of evidence that what we call 'stereotype threat' can hold women back in math. If, before a test, you imply that the women should expect to do a little worse than the men, that hurts performance. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy."

"Yesterday, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) published their 2010 report about the current education situation for girls in Iraq. The report PDF analyzes the education system in Iraq and makes recommendations to both the Iraqi government and UNICEF Iraq to improve girls' access to high quality instruction.

The overall number of children receiving primary education in Iraq has been declining since the 2004-05 school year, although girls' enrollment in schools is much lower than that of boys and their drop out rate is higher. According to the study, "for every 100 boys enrolled in primary schools in Iraq, there are just under 89 girls."

The report attributes girls' under representation in schools to the lack of family approval of girls' education, difficulties traveling to and from school, early marriages, and unsafe conditions and abuse at the school. To address these issues, UNICEF recommends improving school curriculum, providing safe transportation to the girls, implementing innovative educational strategies, and improving teacher training"

 "Fearing an ever-secular Syria might turn to radical Islam, authorities has quietly banned the niqab, a face-covering veil worn by some Muslim women, in public universities — a move welcomed by most Syrians.  The Minister of Higher Education Ghyath Barakat has given his directives that women wearing niqab would not be allowed to enter the Syrian universities, and has " totally rejected this phenomena which contradicts with the academic values and traditional morals and ethics of the Syrian society" a source said.  

The ban, which was not made public in state-run media, does not affect the hijab, or headscarf, which is favored by the vast majority of veiled Syrian women.  The majority of Syrians, of all different age groups, expressed support for getting niqabs and burqas not only out of schools and universities but out of all public places as well.  Others expressed that 'the ban is wrong as it touches personal freedom and certain way of expression.'"