The perception that engineers and scientists are intelligent Caucasian men who are socially inept and absent-minded people is prevalent among students of all levels, from elementary school to college. While the media may, by chance or choice, promote this image, the reality is that most engineers are men. These stereotypical images of engineers…

Dr. Leila Ahmed's memoir, "A Border Passage: From Cairo to America--A Woman's Journey", pulses with a theme of many women's stories: the struggle to define oneself in the face of social restraints. The 1999 book by Ahmed, the first professor of women's studies in religion at Harvard's Divinity School, came long before the recent wave of memoirs…

Sociologist Mabel Agnes Elliott was elected the fourth president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems in 1956-1957 and was the first woman to hold this position. She was an anti-war activist, a feminist and a creative and diligent writer. Yet she experienced many challenges. The Federal Bureau of Investigation kept an active file on…

In this article, the author recalls the time she met Gary Nash at UCLA on July 13, 1992, when they began the work of creating the National Standards in History. Professor Nash was the leader in the development of the United States History Standards. In creating the Standards, they were to focus on Historical Thinking. They needed to organize the…

This paper describes the challenges faced, and rules devised, while dealing with bilingual interview data as part of a life history study of a female science teacher's conceptions of the nature of science while teaching in a school in Karachi. The interview data generated was both in Urdu and English, which underwent a number of processes…

This article reconstructs women's entry into the architecture classrooms of Germany's "Technische Hochschulen," which were, and remain, the nation's primary institutions for training architects. Created in the 1860s and '70s to supply an industrializing nation with well-educated engineers and building officials, these elite colleges…

Drawing from a one-year qualitative research study, this article explores the transnational lives and experiences of three young women and their little sisters in New York with close ties to the Dominican Republic. Using ethnographic research methods--life history interviews, focus groups, participant observation, and document analysis, I examine…

Educators, students, and parents are among those who have stereotypical preconceived ideas about science and scientists. The study reports on a content analysis of graphic images in 303 of the "Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12" from the years 1973 through 2005. Using quantitative and qualitative content analysis, all of the images…

Considers two books, Sara Lawrence Lightfoot's biography of her mother, "Balm in Gilead: Journey of a Healer" (1988), and Pauli Murray's autobiography, "Song in a Weary Throat: An American Pilgrimage" (1987), to illustrate that, by approaching such literature from perspective of social learning theory, one can learn more about…

A list of hundred history-making ethnic women who have created history in their respective fields and become successful writers is presented. The list includes Alma Flor Ada, Julia Alvarez and Oprah Winfrey.

This article demonstrates how life history methods can be used to trace preservice teachers' emergent ethics toward teaching for equity and social justice. Through qualitative analyses of 10 European American, middle-class, female preservice teachers' life history interviews, access to diverse individuals and diverse materials was identified as a…

This biographical study features the leadership of Joan Miller Wint, now retired, who for 23 years was principal of Denbigh High School, located in a high-poverty rural area in Jamaica. In the article I examine biography as a qualitative research strategy used in "telling" the stories of women leaders; explore the influence of Wint's…

Biographical sketches of and comments from five women who have reached the top in the library field: Clara Jones, Barbara Ringer, Lillian Bradshaw, Sherrie Bergman, and Margaret Chisholm. (LS)

This article cites the work of prominent life cycle theorists and gives brief summaries of the lives of several famous women and their accomplishments. With emphasis on particular attributes common to the creative, gifted, and talented female, a tentative life cycle model is formulated. (JDD)

The late 1950s and early 1960s were times of controversial innovation in jazz. Mary Lou Williams--the outstanding female instrumentalist in jazz history, female players of avant-garde music, and women currently in the jazz forefront are discussed. (RM)