If you want your daughter to succeed, buy her a toy construction set. That is the advice from Britain’s (56)_______ female engineers and scientists. Marie Noelle Barton, who heads an Engineering council campaign to encourage girls into science and engineeruing, maintains that some of Britain’s most successful women have had their careers (57)______ by the toys they played with as children. Even girls who end (58)__________ nowhere near a microchip or microscope could benefit from a better (59)________ of science and technology.
“it’s a (60)___________ of giving them experience and corfidence with technology so that when they are (61)__________ with a situation requiring some technical know-how, they feel they can handle it and don’t just (62)______ defeat immediately. ‘ says Mrs. Barton. “ I believe that lots of girls feel unsure of themselves when it comes (63)__________ technology and therefore they must be losing out on jobs because they are reluctant even to apply for them”.
Research recently carried (64)________ suggests that scientific and constructional toys should be (65)______ to girls from an early age,otherwise the result is ‘socialization’ into stereotypically female (66)________, which may explain why relatively few girls study science and engineering at university in Britain. Only 14% of those who have gone for engineering (67)__________ at university this year are women, although this figure does represent an improvement on the 7% recirded some years ago.