Gender and Academic Identity Negotiation among Hypospecializing College Students

• In Event: 087 - Regular Session. Education and Gender: Gendered STEM Education

Abstract

Whether the college major serves as a signal of knowledge or a source of it, the choice of one’s major is a function of students’ beliefs about benefits they expect will accrue to them as a result of this choice. Prior research assumes that students only have one shot at this choice; that is, they choose one major and it is expected to be both externally rewarding and personally fulfilling. This paper utilizes original qualitative and quantitative data about women who double major in order to uncover the ways double majoring enables women to negotiate tensions between parental/societal pressures to choose high-prestige/pay STEM majors and their own affinities towards lower-status non-STEM fields.

Authors

• Richard N. Pitt, Vanderbilt University

• Josh Packard, University of Northern Colorado