Challenging accepted wisdom: Looking at the gender and science education question through a different lens

This article reports on a research project designed to explore a group of women scientists' understandings of themselves and science. The project uses an unconventional methodology: - a mixture of conventional qualitative research methods and techniques developed for use in psychotherapy. Its preliminary results appear to contradict some of the assumptions on which much of past work on girls and science education is based. For example, we found that, for the women involved in this project, factors such as the presence in their lives of strong female role models and/or the use of 'girl-friendly' curriculum materials were not important in their decision to continue the study of science to university level. Other factors - some of which were quite unexpected - had a much greater effect. The article outlines the methodology of this project and some of its findings, and explores the implications of these findings for future work on the gender and science education question.