Rosalind Franklin is the only female scientist named in GCSE and National 5 science exam specifications in the United Kingdom, according to a Cambridge study, the BBC reported. Of 86 scientists named by UK exam boards at that level, the English chemist whose 1950s work helped reveal the structure of DNA was the only woman. Exam specifications set out the skills and knowledge students are expected to have by the end of a course. Exam boards said there was "a clear need for greater representation in science qualifications."
The research, published in the British Educational Research Journal, looked at six boards: AQA, Cambridge OCR, Pearson Edexcel, WJEC, CCEA, and Qualifications Scotland. At Key Stage 4 and equivalent, Franklin was the only woman among 86 named scientists. At Key Stage 5, including A-levels and Scottish Highers, she was one of only three women among 181 scientists. The other two, both in Cambridge OCR's A-level Geology, were Marie Tharp, an American cartographer who made the first map of the Atlantic seafloor in the 1950s, and Inge Lehmann, a Danish seismologist who discovered Earth's inner core in the 1930s. Franklin appears in Cambridge OCR's GCSE Biology and Scottish Highers Biology. Her famous Photograph 51 of DNA was used by Francis Crick and James Watson to work out the double helix. Watson, Crick, and Franklin's colleague Maurice Wilkins received the 1962 Nobel Prize. Franklin had died four years earlier.
The authors found that several major breakthroughs in the specifications were made by women who were not explicitly named. "Many of the scientific discoveries and explanations were developed in the 1800s and early 1900s, a period when scientific and mathematical practice was largely, but not solely, dominated by men," the paper said. "Our findings confirm that the UK science specifications reflect this historical imbalance: although women made significant contributions to major scientific breakthroughs, this fact is rarely acknowledged." They recommended that Franklin be included in all specifications when DNA structure is taught, and that specifications also refer to Marie Curie, who discovered radium and polonium and coined the term radioactivity, and Lise Meitner, who helped discover nuclear fission, among others.
The finding is about whose names appear in official exam documents, not about whether women are absent from science itself. Exam boards have acknowledged a representation problem. The verified result is a count of named scientists across six UK boards, and a short list of women the authors say should be added, not a rewrite of the curriculum that has already taken effect.