Abstract: Research-based instructional methods are applied in an effort to close the persistent gender gap in physics. Creating a short text on a limited topic using some of these methods could benefit female students specifically. A literature review showed research on the gender gap in physics and updated instructional methods for females. Two female physics students were interviewed and observations were conducted at a high performing all-girls school. A physics lab dialogue between two female physics students was recorded and analyzed, which informed the style and voice of the interactive dialogue lesson. An original written lesson intended to engage female physics students was created and tested on three classes of college-level physics students. The survey data, based on multiple choice and essay responses, measured the students' opinions of the lesson and their current textbook. Results showed the interactive lesson was preferred over the current text, and some students requested similar lessons.

This Edited Volume engages with concepts of gender and identity as they are mobilized in research to understand the experiences of learners, teachers and practitioners of physics. The focus of this collection is on extending theoretical understandings of identity as a means to explore the construction of gender in physics education research. This collection expands an understanding of gendered participation in physics from a binary gender deficit model to a more complex understanding of gender as performative and intersectional with other social locations (e.g., race, class, LGBT status, ability, etc). This volume contributes to a growing scholarship using sociocultural frameworks to understand learning and participation in physics, and that seeks to challenge dominant understandings of who does physics and what counts as physics competence. Studying gender in physics education research from a perspective of identity and identity construction allows us to understand participation in physics cultures in new ways. We are able to see how identities shape and are shaped by inclusion and exclusion in physics practices, discourses that dominate physics cultures, and actions that maintain or challenge structures of dominance and subordination in physics education. The chapters offered in this book focus on understanding identity and its usefulness in various contexts with various learner or practitioner populations. This scholarship collectively presents us with a broad picture of the complexity inherent in doing physics and doing gender.