The Mad Scientist Stereotype
If you ask children or indeed even adults to think of a scientist, the image they conjure is likely to be one of an elderly white man in a lab coat, wearing glasses or goggles and holding a test-tube in a gloved hand. Whilst some scientists do look like this and indeed there is a well-documented lack of diversity within STEM fields, this image is not representative of all scientists, and it can be a deterrent for children considering STEM careers.
There is often a disparity between children’s self-identity and who they believe scientists and engineers are. By self-identity, we mean how children perceive themselves, how they label themselves. Children often see scientists as stereotypically “brainy” and usually as white men. Often even children who enjoy science, and even those with top marks do not aspire to be scientists because they do not see the career as “for them”, due to this disparity in identities.
Children’s science-related storybooks present an opportunity to address the lack of diversity in the STEM workforce and introduce a diversity of characters who engage with science. This may help to dispel stereotypes and show children from an early age, that scientists can look like them too.
Can Stories Challenge Stereotypes?
A study by Nhundu (2007) demonstrated that exposing young girls to non-traditional careers via storybooks can result in children changing their aspirations and maintaining these new career goals up to at least a year after exposure to the storybooks. Other studies into the role of storybooks in gender stereotyping show mixed results as there is some evidence that children misremember or distort information from stories with atypical gender roles to make it consistent with their existing constructs of gender. Conversely, other studies find the novelty aspect of atypical gender roles in stories make them more memorable. Despite somewhat inconclusive evidence, including atypical roles in stories, such as female scientists, is unlikely to have any negative effects and is likely to promote more positive images of scientists that are closer to children’s self-image.
Diversity in Storybook Science
Through all of the science storybooks I have written and illustrated, I have consistently tried to challenge stereotypes and present a more diverse and relatable image of scientists.
To dispel the male-heavy stereotype, I often chose female characters to be the scientists. For example, the mother is an Electrical Engineer in How to Stay out of the Dark and it is Wendy, rather than her brothers, who explains the science in Peter Pan and his Shadow.
Additionally, in The Force Field, I chose average students, rather than the stereotypically “geeky” children to be the science superheroes to help break the boffin stereotype. I also flipped the usual tropes and had the scientists as the heroes rather than the mad scientist villain. By presenting more relatable characters as the scientists, I hope to bridge the gap between young people’s mental image of a scientist and their own self-image to encourage the idea that they too could be scientists.
In both Seasons in the City and Not All Scientists, many characters are introduced, with a thoughtful mix of genders, ethnicities and abilities. With a wider range of diversity in the characters, there is a higher chance that the children reading will be able to see themselves in that role and relate more to the story.
Challenging Science Stereotypes in Practice
Not All Scientists Wear Lab Coats, as the title suggests, was written with the goal in mind to introduce children to wide diversity of scientists. Feedback collected from parents and teachers, suggests it has had the desired effect!
A primary school teacher wrote, “this book is PERFECT for the message we try to convey to our children. We do a lot of work around jobs and career journeys and at the moment, we are really focusing on challenging stereotypes in jobs roles (one of which we looked at recently was a scientist) so this would fully support that”.
Another teacher stated, “I have recommended it to other teachers at our school (especially KS1). I feel that it is very important to open up the children’s eyes to the different types of scientists there are in the world.” Whilst a third primary school teacher agreed, “Absolutely amazing story to break the stereotypes around scientist, and being in such a visual and story like manner really gets the children interested!”.
Although it can be tricky to say whether images presented in stories can definitively have a lasting impact, there is evidence to suggest it can. That evidence comes from the stereotype itself. Whilst of course the mad scientist stereotype is not the image that we want to last, you can’t deny it has certainly stuck around through many generations. For decades researchers having been measuring its impact with a tool call the Draw a Scientist Test (DAST). For as long as there have been DASTs there has been crazy hair, goggles and “potions”. And where did this image originate? Stories, of course! They may not always be storybooks but perhaps films, comics and cartoons – from the mad scientist who created Frankenstein, to Doc in Back to the Future and now Ricky and Morty, the image persists.
So, if all those stories can create such a universal image of a “mad scientist” why can’t modern stories present a new and hopefully lasting image of a superhero scientist.
