Efforts to bring more diversity into science often aim at inspiring children, particularly those from underrepresented groups, to pursue a career in a scientific field. Such endeavors include sharing stories of successful scientists to function as role models. A new study, however, calls into question whether some of these career-trajectory stories are actually inspirational (Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., doi: 10.1073/pnas.2612021123).

“Biographies of scientists are an enormously popular genre—millions of children are reading these books or having them read to them,” said Andrei Cimpian, New York University, USA. “They’re typically written to inspire, but what counts as inspirational has been left up to each author’s intuitions. What actually are these books suggesting to kids about success in science? That’s what we wanted to find out.”

Alienating themes

Children are often directed to read books about the lives of famous and successful scientists as a motivational tool, with the intention of showing them a career trajectory and implying that they might one day follow the same path to a scientific career. But these narratives might not always be relatable to or resonate with young readers.

Many stories about scientists show the subject having a fixed talent for science and an early and innate interest in the subject and, especially in biographies about female scientists, they emphasize the hard work necessary to overcome challenges. “The books often portray scientists and their paths to success in ways that risk alienating young readers, particularly girls, racial/ethnic minority children and those who do not view themselves as interested in science,” said Jessica Gladstone, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA.

Fixed versus growth-oriented

The current study reviewed the motivational messages of the 422 best-selling children’s science biographies on Amazon, which include 1,355 protagonists. 59% of the scientists portrayed were male and 41% were female while 76% were white and 24% were other races/ethnicities.

The authors parsed how each story portrayed the scientist’s ability and interest in science to determine if they showed these traits as growth-oriented or fixed. “Books’ portrayals of success as a matter of fixed ability in high-demand fields that already have significant gender and racial/ethnic disparities may be demotivating for some students—particularly girls and children of color—and reinforce the very inequities that we are trying to combat,” Gladstone said.

A narrative that instead shows that scientific ability can grow may communicate to children that success is attainable, making the story more motivational. On the other hand, a fixed portrayal showing science as an innate talent conveys a sense of exclusivity, sending the message that only a special few are “born to do science.” The scientists looked at interest in science in a similar way, showing that a fixed interest was less relatable and inspirational than one that grows over time. The researchers also examined how these factors differed when stories were broken down by scientific field, gender and race and ethnicity.

A new approach to storytelling

Gladstone and colleagues found that a majority of the stories they reviewed portrayed a fixed interest in the sciences. Messages about ability were more split, with children being equally likely to come across depictions of either innate or developed ability. However, biographies about researchers in physics, engineering and computer science disproportionately told narratives that depicted the individual as having innate ability, reinforcing the cultural perception that these are exclusive fields. The study also found that books that discussed women were more likely to focus on hard work rather than talent but did not find a link between scientists from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and increased effort.

Based on their findings, the authors suggest that biographers strive to take a more holistic approach to telling stories of scientists while questioning their biases that affect what aspects of the researcher’s journey they decide to focus on. For example, a story can describe an early interest in science and intellectual growth—both of these can be true in a scientist’s path to success—but authors may favor certain narratives when writing the story.

“Motivation science would say that the scientists should be described in ways that feel relatable to kids, in ways that make their achievements feel like others can reach that level of success and that it is not so far out of the realm of possibility that they could get there,” said Gladstone. “Books should frame messages around the idea that you can get better at math and science by practicing it, that failure is okay and expected and that you can build by learning from those mistakes.”