A Glass Ceiling in AER?: A preliminary glimpse at the distribution of authors by gender in the iSTAR (istardb.org) database

Abstract

In this article, we briefly summarise what information we have available about the distribution of authors by gender of articles contained within the international STudies of Astronomy education Research database (istardb.org). These articles represent a nearly, but not totally, complete population sample of published Astronomy Education Research. There are some indications, although lacking statistical power to decide if it is a true effect, that the top ten authors, first authors and authors by h-index have seen a slight increase in the proportion of women in the last 5 years compared to the all-time levels. Women have also submitted the majority of AER dissertations in the last 5 (~56%) and 10 (~52%) years compared to all time (~41%).