How do we get more women on company boards?

Suitable for secondary, high school and college students, this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, school clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS3, KS4 and KS5 gender studies, citizenship and sociology.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• Despite progress in recent years, women remain underrepresented on company boards. This is a problem: research shows that companies with women in top positions benefit in numerous ways, including through networking and family-friendly policies. Dr Helen Kowalewska of the University of Oxford is investigating differences in countries’ social policies to understand how the UK could improve gender diversity at the top decision-making level.

How do we get more women on company boards? This resource helps develop your students critical thinking skills.

• This resource also contains an interview with Helen about her career path. If your students (or you) have questions for Helen, you/they can send them to her online. All you need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Helen will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Helen’s research.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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