Resumo

MARTINEZ, Mayra Tejuca. University and feminization: the Cuban experience. Educ. Pesqui. [online]. 2020, vol.46, e216073.  Epub 27-Fev-2020. ISSN 1678-4634.  https://doi.org/10.1590/s1678-4634202046216073.

In the past sixty years, Cuban higher education has shown significant variations in its general enrollment rates depending on the application of different access policies. However, the proportion of women attending higher-education institutions kept a sustained increase until the academic year 2006-2007, with the same behavior of the gender parity index. Nevertheless, from the aforementioned academic year, this trend was reversed until reaching a minimum value in 2014-2015. The article analyzes enrollment data, both total and disaggregated by branches of knowledge, to evaluate the causes that led to the decrease of feminization in the enrollment rates between the academic years 2006-2007 and 2014-2015 and to the recovery of women’s representation in the periods that followed. It concludes that such variations in women’s access are primarily explained by changes that started to take place in the admission policies by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. The study also discusses sex differentiation between majors, remarking the low incorporation of women to the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields despite the significance of these branches in the diversification of professions directly related to socio-economic development. Additionally, the article proposes research tasks to deepen the understanding of these problems.

Palavras-chave : Women education; Women studies; Gender issues; Gender bias; STEM education.

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