I will be researching the areas of gender and race differences in Malta. This will focus on positions of these demographics in both professional and households fields as well as in, specifically, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. One note: in the household environment, I have found that domestic violence is exceedingly prevalent. It seems that this fact may give a sign as to where the rest of these topics currently lie. These topics will also include historical as well as contemporary patterns of these statuses.
I am currently focused on various papers which include topics such as slavery (historical) and SAIL, a multicultural engineering project initiative (contemporary) to name just a couple. Other papers I have found do not focus directly on these topics, but I hope to find useful information within them such as specific breakdowns by year of things including population, or gender and age of political offices. This data is given for many consecutive years; therefore, I hope to see some kind of pattern or maybe see a drastic change in women’s or other civil rights as time progresses, possibly even correlating with times of other civil rights movements around the world. Interestingly, Malta did not grant women suffrage until the late 1940’s (compare this to the 1921 granting of women’s suffrage in the US). Women also did not have equal right in family law until the 1990s. It will be interesting to see how these comparatively late movements for women play into their current place in the professional fields. In regards to this, I have found that at the very least, women are extremely under-represented in management positions.
It is a bit difficult to find data due to a small amount of research done on these topics in Malta. Another challenge is looking specifically for STEM areas of interest when they concern women or people of color. This is due to the fact that most papers or sources of information simply talk about the field and the research done, rather than who is performing the research: making it difficult to identify how significant a role women and people of color played in these fields.
Concepts and themes I am focusing on include whether or not there is a significant segregation in the workforce based upon gender or ethnicity (especially in STEM fields). The approach I have found (and believe will be) most successful is not to look for articles relating to STEM and see if they touch on the subjects I am focused on: this is unrealistic. But rather look for articles focusing on women and people of color in Malta, and STEM fields will be a bonus.
I have also found a prevalence of contemporary articles as opposed to historical articles. This, I believe is for 2 reasons. One, research from Malta is somewhat rare and most research has occurred in the recent past. Second, there is more of a focus now than ever on STEM fields which promotes further publications of such topics.
I hope to narrow down my searching and specify what I should be concentrating on based on knowledge I gain from some of the articles I have. A lot of the (somewhat) historical data has given me a better idea of what to look for in regards to these topics.
