Figured Worlds of Schooling and STEM in Denver and Buffalo

• In Event: Pathways to STEM for Low-Income Underrepresented Minorities: High School Opportunity Structures, “Figured Worlds” of STEM, Postsecondary Matriculations, and Choice of Major in Two Cities Differentially Positioned in the Global Economy

Abstract

This presentation focuses on the figured worlds of schooling and STEM among students and parents at each Denver and Buffalo school by drawing on Bourdieu’s theory of social action (1977) and Holland et al.’s (1998) theory of identity and agency in practice. A key tenet is that individual choices and strategies are not the outcome of either blind conformity to social expectations or individuals‘ utilitarian cost-benefit analyses but of bids to position oneself as an actor (take on an identity) in a certain symbolic (or ideological) universe. Holland et al. (1998) name these symbolic universes “figured worlds” and define them as socially and culturally constructed realms of interpretation, e.g., the figured world of science or engineering. In theory, figured worlds mediate the relationship between structurally opportunities and individual choices.
Using these frameworks, we analyze 3 years (2010-2013) of ethnographic data, primarily twice-annual interviews with focal students and parents. Figured worlds were inferred from words and stories used to describe high school activities, student types, academic strengths, STEM, college, and future plans. Images of STEM were then linked to students’ constructed identities and post-secondary aspirations. Results were then compared across schools and cities.
The high-achieving, low-income minority students who constituted our samples in Denver and Buffalo have similar figured worlds of schooling and STEM; that is, their cultural models of what schooling and STEM are about, who the main actors are, and the positive and negative features of these symbolic universes are generally shared. However, focal students in Denver differ from those in Buffalo in perceptions of school climate and student outlook on lived-out and articulated high school and college-going opportunities. Students in Denver tend to be more positive about schooling and their future prospects than those in Buffalo. But these students have quite narrow images of STEM, and particularly in Denver, students’ positive identification with STEM—high in grade 10--erodes dramatically by grade 12.
Focal students and parents in both cities exhibit strong commitments to post-secondary education, but none has much knowledge of STEM careers or possibilities. Knowledge of STEM careers is vague or drawn from popular culture, e.g., TV shows like Grey’s Anatomy and CSI. There is little evidence of serious preparation for STEM futures; and students exhibit misaligned ambitions when, for example, they say they want to be doctors or engineers but were not planning to take more math or science courses. This situation does not promote career pathways, particularly in STEM fields. It also appears that local job opportunities in STEM are not visible in students’ figured worlds of schooling or STEM. In neither city did the actual availability of globally-competitive jobs reach into the students’ figured worlds or substantially affect the opportunities they pursued in high school.
“Figured worlds” extends McFarland’s (2006) formulation of student mobility systems by pointing beyond course selection and grades per se to the meaning horizons used by students and parents to interpret the import and consequences of academic markers for themselves as actors in high school and beyond.

Authors

• Margaret A. Eisenhart, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Carrie D. Allen, University of Colorado - Boulder