Course Choices of Female Students of Japanese High School

Abstract

　This research is to examine the advancement towards women in science-related jobs or fields in university from the viewpoint of gender. The results of TIMSS and PISA show that Japanese students in primary and junior high school are rated highly compared to international standards. However, it is undeniable that many of them carry negative attitudes towards science. It also appears that female students tend to have a much more negative image of science than their male counterparts in Japan. One possible reason for this is the lack of an appropriate environment both at school and at home. Actually, the result of the questionnaire, which I conducted in 2004, clearly reveals that people have a natural tendency to emphasize gender-based courses for students. When they choose their academic courses in high school days, people around motivate males to take ‘science courses’ and females to take ‘humanities.’ It is necessary that we improve the situation for the female students who are blindly led to take ‘humanities’ as their academic course choice. My conclusion of this research is that we need to provide female students with enough support when choosing their course and reevaluate the course selection framework itself.