26.036 - Pathways to STEM Among High-Achieving Low-Income High School Students of Color in Two Cities

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium focuses on high-achieving, low-income minority students’ pathways through high school STEM and onto college. Consistent with the conference theme, access to STEM is a social justice issue: If low-income students of color do not share in STEM, they may be closed-out of future academic and economic opportunities. Using four years of ethnographic, longitudinal case studies of 8 non-selective, public high schools—4 STEM-focused and 4 comprehensive schools—in two cities, we examine high-achieving students’ pathways in the context of differing school structures, STEM opportunities, and cultural representations. Our analyses situate student course-taking trajectories, college-going plans, decisions to enroll, and choice of major in the context of academic, structural, and economic opportunities available during and after high school.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 2: Education in Mulitcultural Contexts Within and Across Subject Areas

Chair

• Margaret A. Eisenhart, University of Colorado - Boulder

Papers

• Pathways to STEM Among Low-Income Students of Color in Four Denver High Schools - Margaret A. Eisenhart, University of Colorado - Boulder; Carrie D. Allen, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Pathways to STEM Among Low-Income Students of Color in Four Buffalo High Schools - Kristin Cipollone, Ball State University; Amy Elizabeth Stich, Northern Illinois University; Lois Weis, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Postsecondary Matriculation Patterns in Denver High Schools - Margaret A. Eisenhart, University of Colorado - Boulder; Sarah Ohle, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Postsecondary Matriculation Patterns in High Schools in Buffalo - Rachel Fix Dominguez, University at Buffalo - SUNY; Andrea Nikischer, Buffalo State College - SUNY; Lois Weis, University at Buffalo - SUNY

Discussant

• Angela Calabrese Barton, Michigan State University