Japan’s Policies to Promote the Increase of Female Scientists : Focusing on the Measures regarding Science Career Choices of Female Junior and Senior High School Students

ヤマグチ, ユナ

Yamaguchi, Yuna

Center for the Study of Co* Design, Osaka University

中高生

理系進路選択

Female scientists

Junior and senior high school students

Science career choices

In recent years, the Japanese government has been implementing a lot of age-appropriate policies ranging from young researchers to elementary school students, based on their stage of studies, education and age. Their purpose is to nurture global human resources in the field of science and technology. Although the policies to increase female scientists in particular have been announced, the proportion of women in the field of science and technology in Japan has remained stagnant. Under these circumstances, the studies on the transition of policies targeting young female scientists and on the relationship between gender and science career choices of female junior and senior high school students have been conducted. However, there have been no assessments of the relationship or coordination between the intergenerational policies, and almost no evaluations of the policies targeting junior and senior high school students, who are considered to be the first to become aware of science. This paper examines the validity of the Japanʼs policies to promote the increase of female scientists, focusing on the measures regarding science career choices of female junior and senior high school students. First, it obtains the whole picture of Japanʼs current policies to promote the increase of female scientists. Then, it analyzes how policies to promote science career choices of female junior and senior high school students are positioned in the whole picture, mainly through a literature review. Next, mainly through a questionnaire survey, this paper analyzes how the measures are perceived by junior and senior high school students and how they are influenced by them. In this paper, “science” is defined as science, engineering, and medicine, in which mathematics or science are chosen as major in high school. The analysis reveals that there have been no efforts focusing on career choices of female junior and senior high school students, and most of the current measures are for students who are highly interested and motivated in science. However, a higher degree of recognition of the measures could improve the effectiveness. In addition, a higher proportion of junior high school students is interested in science upon hearing the measures compared to high school students, suggesting the importance of policies targeting junior high school students. Furthermore, most of students choose future majors without sufficient understanding of sciences and humanities. In conclusion, among Japanʼs policies to promote the increase of female scientists, measures to deepen understanding of sciences and humanities should be first conducted, especially toward junior high school students. And then, reviews of the measures and making known to junior high and high school students are also important. That is, measures which reach out to students who are struggling with science should be considered, in addition to measures targeting students with excellent aptitude in science.