Scientist biographies may discourage children from science, study finds

A new study says scientist biographies demotivate children when they present success in science as the result of being born brilliant or interested from an early age. Researchers said that message could make science feel out of reach for some young readers, especially girls and children from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.

The research, led by Jessica Gladstone, an educational psychology professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, examined 422 bestselling children’s biographies of scientists. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Gladstone conducted the study with Gabrielle Applebaum, who was a research assistant at the time, and New York University psychology professor Andrei Cimpian. The team said parents and teachers often use these books to encourage interest in science, but many of the stories send messages that may work against that goal.

Why could scientist biographies demotivate children?

The researchers analyzed the books through mindset theory, which looks at how beliefs about ability affect motivation and learning. A fixed mindset treats talent and intelligence as traits people are born with, while a growth mindset treats ability as something that can improve through practice, help and better strategies.

According to the study, many books failed to discuss how scientists developed either their interest in science or their scientific ability. When books did address ability, they were about as likely to describe it as fixed or inborn as they were to show it developing over time.

The researchers found a stronger pattern around interest: books overwhelmingly described scientists’ interest in science as innate or emerging very early in life. Gladstone said that kind of portrayal can suggest that science is for a narrow group of people who seem destined for it from childhood.

The team also looked at differences across fields because public stereotypes often frame success in computer science, engineering and physics as requiring natural genius. The researchers said those same fields have some of the widest gender and racial or ethnic representation gaps, and the children’s books reflected fixed-ability messages in those areas.

What the study found in bestselling books

The sample included 422 of Amazon’s top 500 bestselling children’s scientist biographies, a selection the researchers said captured books likely to reach homes, classrooms and libraries. Across the books, the team counted 655 individual scientists after removing duplicate mentions.

The scientists featured were 59% male and 41% female, according to the study. By race and ethnicity, 76% were white and 24% were from other racial or ethnic groups.

The researchers also found gendered patterns in how effort was described. Biographies of women scientists focused more heavily on hard work than biographies of men scientists, even after the team accounted for the scientific field.

The study said that framing women’s success mainly as the result of extra effort can imply that achievement in science costs women more than it costs men. The researchers did not find the same link between effort narratives and scientists’ race or ethnicity.

To test whether effort language appeared because women faced more barriers, the team sorted obstacles into three groups: failures, social barriers such as discouraging adults, and structural barriers such as sexism. All three types of obstacles were tied to effort narratives, but the gender difference remained after accounting for those obstacles and for author gender, according to the study.

What kinds of science stories may help?

Gladstone said biographies can still be accurate and encouraging if they show scientists as people whose skills and interests grew over time. She said books should make clear that children can improve in math and science through practice, that failure is part of learning, and that mistakes can lead to progress.

As an example of a potentially discouraging message, Gladstone pointed to a book about Ada Lovelace that described her writing mathematical equations at age 3. By contrast, she cited a Neil deGrasse Tyson biography that included his interests in ballet and boxing, showing a broader childhood before his science interests developed.

The researchers said the issue is not whether children should read about famous scientists. Their concern is that stories meant to inspire can instead reinforce the idea that science belongs mainly to people who appear exceptional from the start.

This story draws on original reporting from Phys.org.