From Marginality to LegitimatePeripherality: Understanding theEssential Functions of a Women’sProgramAJDA KAHVECIDepartment of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education,Marmara University, Istanbul 34722, TurkeySHERRY A. SOUTHERLANDDepartment of Middle and Secondary Education, Florida State University,Tallahassee, FL 32306-4490, USAPENNY J. GILMERDepartment of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida State University,Tallahassee, FL 32306-4390, USAReceived 8 February 2007; revised 29 June 2007, 2 July 2007; accepted 3 July 2007DOI 10.1002/sce.20234Published online 11 September 2007 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).ABSTRACT: The focus of this research was to understand how a program for women inscience, mathematics, and engineering (SM&E) at college level in the southeastern UnitedStates functioned to influence women’s decision making in terms of participation in thesefields. By employing Lave and Wenger’s theory of situated learning, we explored this pro-gram through two and a half academic years. We utilized a qualitative –quantitative mixedapproach in our methodology. For the case study aspect, we focused on the cases of threewomen participating in the support program via participant observations and in-depth in-terviews. For a more general description, we developed a questionnaire and augmented thiswith interviews with a broad spectrum of students. Our findings illustrated that the programdemonstrated a great potential to aid the traditionally marginalized to move from marginalityto legitimate participation in the communities of science. The program functioned success-fully in four ways, each interwoven with the others. One implication of these findings is thatsuch programs should include a multitude of events and opportunities for cognitive, social,Correspondence to: Ajda Kahveci; e-mail: [email protected] preliminary work of this research can be found in the Proceedings of the NARST Conference held inVancouver, Canada, in 2004 (for more i nformation, see Kahveci, 2004).C2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.34 KAHVECI ET AL.and emotional s upport. Being not tall orders financially, such programs may be consideredas effective interventions in both national and international settings, where women are indisadvantaged status.C2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 92:33 – 64, 2008INTRODUCTIONWomen have lower participation rates than men and receive differential treatment inscience, mathematics, and engineering (SM&E) fields during their education as well asin areas beyond education. National reports highlighting these issues provide detailed de-scriptions and statistical figures about women’s disproportionate distribution or differentialtreatment in these fields (Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy [CSEPP],2007a, 2007b; Freeman, 2004; National Science Board [NSB], 2006; National ScienceFoundation [NSF], 2003, 2007). In spite of substantial gains since the 1960s, gaps still existbetween women and men in terms of their college-level enrollment in the (SM&E) majors.Despite at least two decades of attention to these issues, women are still less likely thanmen to choose a career that involves SM&E and are more likely than men to earn bachelor’sdegrees in nonscience and nonengineering fields. Among those that do choose a major inSM&E, the majority is still concentrated in certain fields such as biology, psychology, andthe social sciences (Bystidziensky & Bird, 2006; Freeman, 2004; NSB, 2006; NSF, 2007).College women intending to major in SM&E may face problems unrelated to the strictlycognitive aspects of academic work (Seymour, 1995; Seymour & Hewitt, 1997). Accordingto Seymour’s (1995) 3-year ethnographic study, the science climate at college is a chal-lenging one, and the first 2 years, she designates as the “weed-out system.” She describesthe “weed-out system” as an ongoing socialization process of primarily one group, Whitemen, consisting of a moral and intellectual challenge, aimed at testing the ability of youngmen to tolerate stress, pain, or humiliation with fortitude and self-control, in which theprinciple of “only the very best survive” (p. 460) operates. Seymour suggests that many ofthe challenges that women students face are related to this climate and to the attitudes ofmale faculty and their male peers.Seymour explains that the more feminine perspective of many young women—andsome young men—requires that they develop positive personal relationships with faculty.According to Seymour, many well-qualified women expect support, care, and advice, butvery often they cannot find in the activities associated with a SM&E major. Lacking thesepositive interactions, they come to think that they perform badly and should not continuein the major, regardless of their actual progress.Seymour argues that limited “personal pedagogical relationships” (p. 465) with sciencefaculty, and the “impersonal” nature of SM&E activities, contribute much to women’sdiscouragement. Many women students are discouraged by the failure to be encouraged byfaculty. The lack of support network with senior women peers knowing and working withinthe “weed-out system,” leaves the inexperienced women students alone in their struggle.The findings of past research into women’s r etention in SM&E fields have had implica-tions for possible support systems. Having upper-ranked women peers or women SM&Efaculty (Seymour, 1995) as role models, and exposing women students to life stories ofwomen scientists (Wygoda, 1993) might facilitate women’s retention, but may not be ef-fective strategies by themselves. Research suggests that taking action with joint approachesand connecting students and faculty is of key importance. Networks of women, both peersand scientists, in SM&E could be an effective component of women support programs.However, programs structured around these implications are not numerous. Accordingto Matyas (1992), few programs for SM&E in the United States are directly targeting un-dergraduate women students. Less than 10% of over 300 programs target women comparedScience EducationDOI 10.1002/sceESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS OF A WOMEN’S PROGRAM 35with 51% targeting minority students. As importantly in terms of understanding the man-ner that these programs “work,” researchers evaluating those programs typically employtraditional quantitative methods, primarily consisting of comparing grades, grade point av-erages, and retention