Abstract:
The experiences of women in choosing higher education courses in the field of Natural Sciences (NS) in Mozambique are still very few studied. This study sought to fill this knowledge gap, with the general objective of understanding the factors influencing women's choice of NS courses in two public universities, Pedagogical University of Maputo and Licungo University. Inspired by feminist epistemologies, the Socio-cognitive theory of Career Development and the Construction of Gender differences in science, articulating with the concept of Epistemic Injustice, document analysis and individual interviews were conducted with six educational managers and eighteen female students, using a qualitative approach. The results of the document analysis revealed the absence of a framework of structural actions that encourages women to pursue NS courses. Furthermore, the results of the interviews revealed that due to local socio-cultural factors in relation to socially ascribed roles, associated with gender-science stereotypes, women were discouraged from pursuing NS courses particularly
those in Physics and Chemistry, as they did not align with the social expectations placed on them. Most of the women interviewed chose to follow a NS course by individual preference given the passion they felt for some subjects in this field of knowledge. This passion was associated with the students' self-concept, self-confidence and self-efficacy judgements and beliefs. Among the contextual factors, fathers and mothers as well as female teachers of NS emerged from the students' narratives as major influencers on their NS course choices. In
addition to this, the results also showed that most of the women interviewed had little or no information regarding the course they intended to attend, but even so, they were moved by the positive representation they had of the NS not as a seven-headed animal, but something possible, challenged and faced. In view of the results, this study concluded that course choices or preferences were socially constructed, individually decided and managed and institutionally shaped
