Using data collected at the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP) from 2014 to 2018, as well as a follow up survey, we examine correlations between a wide range of attitudes as an undergraduate student and persistence. From our follow up survey, we can examine correlations between attitude and participation in physics through and after graduation. The CUWiP surveys asked about women’s sense of community, performance competence, physics identity, physics interest, sense of belonging, and perceived recognition. Our analysis covers each individual question asked on the survey, as well as compound categories created from grouping similar questions. We find that identity, interest, and perceived recognition are correlated with persistence, while sense of belonging is anti-correlated with persistence. Our goal for this project is to find a comprehensive list of qualities that can be used to predict retention in undergraduate women. Using these qualities and future CUWiP surveys, we can find which undergraduate women need more support from the physics community.

Collaborative groupwork in physics courses is at the core of many PER informed shifts in pedagogy that are linked to improved learning outcomes.  At the same time, it is not hard to imagine situations that could arise in small groups that would work to undermine the self-efficacy and comfort of particular students.  We were especially concerned about this possibility at our large, male-dominated research university where women had anecdotally reported feeling unheard, dismissed, or worse during group activities in the past.  In this talk we will discuss shifts in self-efficacy among physics majors during the first year. A total of about 200 students, approximately 60 of whom self-identify as females, start a physics major at our institution each fall. In 2022/2023, we measured student self-efficacy (related to being a physics major, taking the physics course and working in groups) at the start of our two-term, first-year sequence for majors. We measured self-efficacy again near the end of the two-term sequence, after many months of having students work together in groups.  Changes in self-efficacy over time and differences between genders will be discussed, as will our attempts to introduce DEI materials into course-related group work. 

In the Huasteca Potosina, a rural area with a high percentage of economic and social marginalization, where the least favored belong to the indigenous population, for more than six years they have been working on a scientific training program for girls and young women, as a way to contribute to the perception of the role of women in society, promote a taste for science, and develop projects that address the solution of local problems. Currently, phase VI of the program is being celebrated, which has been transformed according to the needs of the context and has been held in a virtual and hybrid face-to-face manner, and has passed with the pandemic from the local to the international. This presentation shares the results of the implementation of this program that has served more than 400 girls in 14 countries of America.

In 2018, an investment of 570,000 dollars was made by a government public call with the objective of supporting projects aimed at stimulating the training of women for the careers of exact sciences, engineering and computing in Brazil. This call was also focused on arousing the vocational interest of female students from Basic Education to Higher Education by these professions and for scientific and technological research. This action aims to combat the dropout, common in the first years of undergraduate courses in these areas, as well as bringing public schools closer to Basic Education and Higher Education Institutions. Another objective is to attract more girls to pursue careers in the exact fields (which are primarily male), which would increase gender equality and potentially increasing the quality of research in Brazil. In 2018, 78 projects were approved with financial resources, proposed by public/private universities, museums and non-governmental organisations from all regions of the country. Thus, in 2020, approximately 40 other projects with financial resources were contemplated. These projects are proposed to reduce, in the coming years, the horizontal and vertical exclusion in the areas covered by the project and a significant advance in Brazilian science.