1) Are family attitudes less likely to constrain young women’s STEM intentions and attainment in the 1990s, as compared to the 1970s? 2) Alternatively, did the effect of family attitudes become less gendered during this period, such that family attitudes constrained both women’s and men’s STEM intentions and attainment among the 1992 cohort?
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ClearWho Wants to Have a Career in Science or Math? Exploring Adolescents' Future Aspirations by Gender and Race/Ethnicity
The authors investigate how different racial/ethnic and gender subgroups compare to White males in terms of adolescent career aspirations in science and math, further considering the role that achievement and attitudes may play in shaping disparities at this early point in occupational trajectories.
Choosing and Leaving Science in Highly Selective Institutions
– Of the group of 2,276 students initially interested in science, 40 percent did not finally concentrate in science, and smaller proportions of women (48 percent) than of men (66 percent) persisted.
– The most significant cognitive factor predicting these losses was low grades earned in science courses taken during the first two years of study.
– With grades held equal, gender was not a significant predictor of persistence in engineering and biology; gender added strongly to grades, however, as a factor associated with unusually large losses of women from a category that included the physical sciences and mathematics.
– Science majors regarded their instruction as too competitive, with too few opportunities to ask questions, taught by professors who were relatively unresponsive, not dedicated, and not motivating.
– Students who defected from science did so largely because of the attraction of other fields, but many shared the criticism of over competitiveness and inferior instruction, along with the view that the work was too difficult.
– Except for perceived competitiveness, women did not rate their classroom experiences as being more unpleasant than did men.