What if children meet a real professor?
In March 2025, Utrecht 木瓜福利影视 professors cycled to a primary school for the tenth time during Meet the Professor. Researchers meet children, answer questions and try to dispel stereotypes surrounding science and scientists. Schools and professors have been enthusiastic for years. But does it work? Social scientist Madelijn Strick and program maker Lieke Dekker investigated it. The results were published in an international scientific journal.
Madelijn: 鈥淚n comics, videos and other media, professors are often eccentric men with wild hair and lab coats. For many children - and especially for girls and children of color - these images reinforce the idea that professors are 'different,' and therefore 'not like me.' But what if children met a real professor? Without exploding hair, but on a bicycle and with a good story? To find out, Lieke and I developed a task that allowed us to measure the stereotypes surrounding professors, and that was fun for the children to do.
Our research shows that a visiting female professor does indeed eliminate gender stereotypes. But when a male professor visits, existing gender stereotypes are actually reinforced. Unless children also get to know other researchers from diverse backgrounds and genders. Meet the Professor works, but to really make an impact, diversity in role models is crucial. So you have to show many different faces.鈥
For me, working with the creators of Meet the Professor is one of the highlights of this research. It is so good and fun to be able to do this together! Lieke knew through her experience with primary education how we could make the questionnaire as accessible and low-threshold as possible for teachers and children. And collaborating with the creators also made the research more relevant: the results were immediately put into practice. In 2025, all professors went out with a colleague.
Dr. Madelijn Strick is a lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences
Lieke Dekker is program maker at the Center for Science and Culture
For more information, contact Madelijn Strick (m.strick@uu.nl).
Text: Lieke Dekker
In all of the Centre for Science and Culture's public engagement programs, we measure the effect of the program on the audience. We tailor the form of measurement to the audience and purpose of the program, from question trails and surveys to tear down cards and bingo quizzes. You can find more information on how to do that at the IMPACTLAB.