Do boys and girls differ in their interests in and attitudes towards physics? What is to be done about it?

Physics belongs to the least popular subjects and relatively few people choose their future career in the field of physics. This state could be influenced by the fact that physics as a school subject and a possible field of the future profession is generally perceived as more suitable for men. In order to improve this state, we decided to explore the present state in detail and on the basis of this intimate knowledge we decided to suggest some particular changes making girls and boys to be more interested in physics. Thus, we accomplished a questionnaire investigation to find out attitudes of young people towards physics and classes of physics. Empirical data were obtained from a representative sample of students of lower and upper secondary schools from the whole Czech Republic (more than 4 000 respondents). Among the main research findings belongs that both boys and girls agreed on the following: The majority of lower secondary level pupils like physics (unlike upper secondary level students); they would like to make experiments in their physics lessons; they do not want to solve calculation problems and to derive formulae; as the most interesting they find astrophysics, optics, and topics connected with safety and modern technologies.