This paper studies how sibling gender composition affects preferences for education within STEM and whether the e?ects on STEM preferences in education persists into labor market outcomes.
Current Selections
ClearAn Exploration of STEM, Entrepreneurship, and Impact on Girls in an Independent Day School
1) Examine the impact of a predominately female STEEM (science, technology, engineering, entrepreneurship and mathematics) teaching staff on girls’ perceptions of STEEM. 2) Examine the impact of adding entrepreneurship to a STEM curriculum.
Choice of Majors: Are Women Really Different from Men?
– High school academic preparation, faculty gender composition, and major returns have little effect on major switching behaviors, and women and men are equally likely to change their major in response to poor grades in major-related courses.
– Women in male-dominated majors do not exhibit different patterns of switching behaviors relative to their male colleagues.
– Women are more likely to switch out of male-dominated STEM majors in response to poor performance compared to men.
– It takes multiple signals of lack of fit into a major (low grades, gender composition of class, and external stereotyping signals) to impel female students to switch majors.
The Burden of Being “Model”: Racialized Experiences of Asian STEM College Students
– The students constructed personal narratives mediated by symbolic cultural systems to make meaning of their experiences, which more often disputed than confirmed the model minority stereotype.
– Eleven students brought up the notion that some Asian students are encouraged to pursue STEM-based fields because the perception is that they will not be successful in other fields, such as English, religion, or history. They discussed being pigeonholed into majoring in STEM in spite of their many diverse life and career interests.
– The experiences of Black and Asian STEM college students overlap significantly, in that both are bound by society’s misrecognition of their race and ability.
– These students were not immune from believing in the stereotypes and biases about their own race, even as they recognized that these stereotypes might be harming them.
– Five students in this study discussed using the MMM and their high achievement in STEM to capitalize on or take advantage of the stereotype.
– South Asian (Indian or Pakistani) students in particular have similar experiences that differ from those of East Asian students. Many women in this sample talked about the salience of skin tone discrimination in their lives and its effects on their academic performance.
Ethnic Variation in Gender-STEM Stereotypes and STEM Participation: An Intersectional Approach
The authors examine ethnic variation in gender-
STEM stereotypes and STEM participation among African American and European American college students.